
yllabes ot Fsyclieiogy 



REVISED EDITION 





m 



SYLLABUS OF PSYCHOLOGY 



FOR USE IN 



Normal Schools and Colleges 



BY 

W. A. CI.ARK, Ph. D. 

Professor of Psychology and Education in the Missouri State Normal School 

at Kirksville 



REVISED EDITION 



PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHOR 
1915 



0^'V 



COPYRIGHT 1913, 1915, BY W. A. CLARK 



JUL 26 \m 



A Syllabus of Psychology 3 

PREFACE 

While this Syllabus is printed for use in the author's own classes, 
where in the conduct of the class exercises its philosophical presupposi- 
tions may be ignored or only incidentally stated as the exigencies of the 
discussions appear to demand, respect for the critical general reader, into 
whose hands it may by chance come, necessitates a brief fore-word of 
explanation. 

The author regards Psychology as a '^natural science", concerned 
with the description and explanation of a characteristic body of phe- 
nomena. He accepts the spirit and method of the ''New Psychology", 
without disparaging the results of observation and constructive thinking 
in the past. While in his philosophical attitude he would probably find 
his place with the monistic idealists, as a teacher of elementary General 
Psychology his standpoint is that of a naive dualism, accepting unques- 
tioned for the purposes of scientific study the existence of an external 
world that may be sensed through the body mechanism and known in the 
conscious individual life. It is thought that each modern science may 
rightfullj^ transform reality for its own purposes, leaving to the meta- 
physician the justification of all of its ontological and epistemological 
assumptions and postulates. Consequently, no question is raised as 
to the substantial nature of the human soul, either to insist that it is 
"nothing but a stream of mental processes" or a static entity with ca- 
pacities, or "faculties", for various forms of functioning. Introspective 
analysis, as the immediate critical study of personal experiences during 
their continuance, is accepted as the ultimate source of all scientific 
knowledge of psychic life. Consciousness is so defined that the "subject- 
object problem", the Banquo's ghost of psychological study, is not per- 
mitted to vitiate the examination of mental facts as such. Psychological 
experiments are viewed as introspective observations under artificially 
controlled conditions; and an effort is made to distinguish between bio- 
logical and psychological stud}^ of the living human organism. 

The details of matter and method in this synoptic outline have been 
determined largely by two important considerations; first, the intellectual 
status and needs of the students for whose use it has been specifically 
prepared; and second, a well-defined theory as to the purpose of all in- 
struction in elementary General Psychology, especially for students in 
State Normal Schools. In the State Normal School at Kirksville this 
course is open to students of the grade of the Freshman and Sophomore 
years of college study, and presupposes a fair knowledge of the elements 
of the physical and biological sciences with some acquaintance with 
modern laboratory work. Starting with the student's general knowledge 
of the facts of his own mind, his body, and his relation to his physical and 

mi mm. 



4 A Syllabus of Psychology 

spiritual environment, it seeks to lead him in a critical study of the facts 
of his own conscious life, without any radical reconstruction of his point 
of view. The order of study is the conventional one — '' knowing", 
''feeling", ''willing"; and only the principal subjects are considered, thus 
laying in outline a foundation for subsequent studies in the same field. 
As to the second consideration, the principal purpose of this course is to 
give to the student such a knowledge of himself and of the rational con- 
trol of his own experiences as will secure for him integrity of character 
and efficiency in the affairs of his daily life. His acquaintance with the 
technical terms of his science and its logically outlined system is held to 
be secondary to this character-forming result in his own personal being. 
It is to this end that Part III has been differentiated from the analysis 
of experience in Part II and has been made a constructive study in "the 
making of a life". Even for Normal School students, for whom Psy- 
chology is too often treated as a sort of propaedeutic to Pedagogy, the 
essential fact sought to be realized by the instruction is a well-knit man- 
hood and womanhood through a clear knowledge of self. 

The "directions for recording results in experimental introspective 
observation", given on page 6, provide for more comprehensive "labor- 
atory work" than the author has himself found feasible, or desirable, in 
an introductory course. They are printed here in this full form to indi- 
cate to his students the spirit and attitude of thoroughness in such work 
which he holds to be essential in more advanced study, if Psychology 
would justify its claim to a place among modern positive sciences. In 
the very limited experimentation employed in his own classes much sim- 
pler forms of expressing results are found adequate. Experimenting in 
the beginning study in the sciences in general is for illustration and per- 
sonal corroboration, not for discovery or research; what the beginner 
in Psychology does with "Weber's Law" is analogous to what the be- 
ginner in Physics does, with his Atwood's Machine, with the "Laws of 
Falling Bodies", and in neither case should he take the scientific validity 
of his work too seriously. It would be a mistake, however, to conclude 
that the author undervalues direct critical study of mental facts under 
controlled conditions even by beginners; the fact simply is that long ex- 
perience as a teacher of beginners in this science has made his method 
more pedagogical, if less logical. 

The lists of questions and exercises at the close of the sections are 
designed to quicken the student's interest in the concrete problems of his 
science. They are so worded as to provoke independent thought. The 
student is encouraged to attack such of these as appeal to him; he is not 
expected to answer them all. While some are easily within his proper 
field, others are far out on the border line of metaphysical speculation. 
The value of some of them for students of this grade is to be found in 



A Syllabus of Psychology 5 

their suggestions of other worlds of human interests, not in their contri- 
bution to mapping out the one in which they already somewhat comfort- 
ably dwell. In the regular class work, as in the teaching of all sciences, 
many simple problems and questions arise, which are referred immedi- 
ately to the class for investigation or are assigned to individual pupils 
for special reports. It is impossible, as well as undesirable, to cumber the 
pages of the syllabus with such details of teaching, since their character 
depends upon the constantly varying interests and activities of the class. 

The '^ references ' for library study at the close of the various sections 
will doubtless appear to be needlessly full and to be lacking in equal 
authoritativeness, but they have their justification in local conditions. 
The economic use of a reference library by large classes necessitates many 
references, even to the point of duplication; the books named here are 
those readily accessible in our own school library, for obvious reasons 
limited to the English language. In the choice of references no attempt 
has been made to corroborate narrowly the dogmatic statements of the 
Syllabus, rather it has been the aim to throw a sidelight on the matter 
from diverse points of view. 

It is regretted that the increased size of this Syllabus has made it 
necessary to abandon the blank righthand pages found so valuable for 
important classroom memoranda; it is urged, however, that the student 
keep a concise record of his own growing thought during the daily work of 
the class. Such immediate expression of thought in the moment of its 
birth gives it cogency and definiteness that it will not otherwise have. 
He thinks with his pencil. 

The Index is added to facilitate the use of the little book in subse- 
quent study. In many cases it is in effect a guide to the literature of 
particular topics, through the references at the close of the sections in- 
dicated. 

W. A. Clark. 
Missouri State Normal School at Kirksville, July 1, 1915. 



6 A Syllabus of Psychology 

Directions for Recording Results in Experimental 
Introspective Observation 

The record should include four points: (1) the object of the experi- 
ment, (2) the apparatus employed, (3) the method of controlling the 
phenomena, and (4) introspective memoranda of facts of consciousness. 
To these in many cases a fifth point, always under a separate heading, 
should be added, a general remark upon the success of the experiment. 

In stating the object of the experiment, while it is well to define it 
as clearly as possible, the student should avoid a bias in favor of a preju- 
diced conclusion. It is better to propose 'Ho examine", "to explore", 
'Ho test", "to discover", etc., than "to prove", "to show", "to fix", 
etc. 

The apparatus should be described with reference to its special 
function in the prefeent experiment; a drawing is often desirable. Let 
the description include all of the material conditions of controlling the 
mental processes that are not noted as purely a matter of "method" 
under the third heading. 

The method should be described as the control of the life process 
from without. It is limited to the physiological side of the experiment; 
and when an assistant is employed in the experimenting, the account is 
largely of what he does, learned from him subsequent to the experiment. 
No introspective facts or theorizings should be given under this head, 
the aim being merely to show how the conditions of the experience were 
controlled. 

The introspective memoranda are designed to be a transcript of the 
processes of the experience as revealed in consciousness and reviewed in 
memory as soon after as possible. This is the heart of the record, and 
no pains should be spared to make it an honest exhibit of the facts. Bear 
in mind that it is to be an unbiased account of what actually happens, 
without theory or self-stultification. Self -observation under artificially 
controlled conditions is the essential method of modern Psychology, and 
it requires earnest effort and much practice to use it successfully. Do 
not be too solicitous for fullness of your account; one or two facts clearly 
and indubitably perceived are far better than a lengthy list of what you 
think ought to be perceived. 

Under the fifth heading may be given explanations, theoretical 
conclusions, and other matters that properly find no place in the succinct 
record of the experiment under the first four headings. This can be 
written up at any time after the experiment, while it is very desirable 
that the "introspective memoranda" should be made immediately after 
the experiment. 



A Syllabus of Psychology 7 

ANALYSIS OF CONTENTS 

GENERAL INTRODUCTION 

Definition of Psychology 9 

Forms of definition 
Psychology a true science 
The subject matter 

Method of Psychology 14 

Nature of psychological analysis 

Nature and validity of introspection 

Some valuable auxiliary methods 

Function and form of psychological experiments 

Field of Psychology 24 

General delimitation 
Relations to allied sciences 
Subdivisions of the science 
Characteristics of the ''New Psychology' 

ANALYSIS OF EXPERIENCE 

General character of an experience 30 

An experience defined 

The procession of experiences 

Relation of mind to body 

Three phases of an experience distinguished 

Cognition: the knowing aspect of experience 38 

Nature of cognitive growth 

A conscious object-seeking activity 
What " knowledge " is 
Process of knowing an external object 
Three aspects of cognition distinguished 

Presentative cognition 42 

Nature of presentative knowing 

Sensation: subjective aspect of presentative cognition 

What sensations are 

Kinds of sensations 

Threshold of sensation 

Quantity of sensations : " Weber-Fechner Law " 

Localizing sensations in the body structure 

Centrally aroused sensations 

Perception: objective aspective or presentative cognition 
Nature of perception 
Distinguished from sensation 



8 A Syllabus of Psychology 

The " outer world " of perception 
Perception a constructive process 
Illusory perceptions 

Representative cognition 58 

Distinguished from presentative cognition 
What a memory experience is 
Four elements of a memory 

Retention, or 'liability to recall" 

Recalling, or reviving a past experience 

Recognition, or accepting a revived experience as such 

Localizing, or placing the experience in 'Hhe past'' 
Elaborative cognition 67 

Relation of elaboration to acquisition 

Apperception 

Conception 

Imagination 

Judgment 

Reasoning 

Knowledge as achievement and as self 

Affection : the feeling aspect of experience 85 

Affection in general 

Nature of affection 

Relation of ''pleasantness" and ''unpleasantness" to 
metabolic body processes 

Distinction of "ideational" and "sensuous" feelings 

" James-Lange theory^' of emotions 
Emotions . 92 

Nature and kinds 

Alleged antagonism between feeling and knowing 
Sentiments 97 

The place of sentiments in human life 

Classification of sentiments 

"Moods", "temperaments", "dispositions", "passions" 

Conation: the doing aspect of experience.. 103 

Willing in the wide and in the narrow sense 
Impulse as the simple will element 
Attention "voluntary" and "involuntary" 
Interest 

Choice ; motives , deliberation 
Execution ; sustained activity, ' ' resolution ' ' 
" Freedom of the will " 
SYNTHESIS OF SELFHOOD. (Omitted from this edition). 



A Syllabus of Psychology 
A SYLLABUS OF PSYCHOLOGY 



GENERAL INTRODUCTION 

Chapter I — Definition of Psychology 

1. Psychology defined. Psychology is the science of personal 
experiences as they exist in consciousness. 

(a) Importance of a strict definition. It is important that the 
student of Psychology should at the very outset of his study determine 
with precision the field and method of his science, since vagueness in the 
fundamental conceptions of what Psychology is about and the methods 
by which its data are handled and evaluated will obscure all his investi- 
gations and discourage him from his highest efforts in study. No other 
science has suffered more from lack of accurate definition of subject 
matter and strict delimitation of its field than Psychology. The defini- 
tion given above is in general narrower than that of the common text- 
book or scientific treatise; it purposely restricts the matter to be studied 
to the events of conscious personal life, leaving to the biologists and soci- 
ologists large areas and groups of phenomena which many later writers 
on Psychology have sought to conquest for their own science. 

(b) Other definitions. The student will find a critical study of 
the common definitions of Psychology profitable. The following will 
serve as types: — 

■''Psychology is the science of consciousness." This is analogous to 
defining Geometry as ''the science of space," or Algebra as "the science 
of time;" and just as there can be no science of space or of time so there 
can be no science of "consciousness" in any proper use of that term. 
Nor is the definition improved by the statement that it is "the science of 
the phenomena of consciousness, " since every explanatory science deals 
with phenomena, not with any substantial reality of which they are 
viewed as manifestations. The question is. Is consciousness, continuous 
or discrete, the concrete entity whose phenomena are to be described and 
explained by the psychologist? Is not consciousness related to the real 
objects of psychological study very much as "space" is to the figures of 
Geometry, or "nature" to the objects of study in Physics? 

"Psychology is the science of mental processes, " is Titchener's defi- 
nition, to which Stout adds the word "positive" ("the positive science 
of mental processes") to distinguish Psychology as a fact science from 
the normative sciences. In a similar definition Baldwin introduces the 
word "actual" ("the science of actual psychical processes") to emphasize 
the fact that Psychology deals with real processes in the life of an indi- 
vidual person, not with the abstractions of science. These are good 
working definitions; but does not Psychology deal immediately with. the 
concrete events in personal life, with bits of life that have a kind of real 
completeness in themselves which scientific analysis transforms and 
resolves into "processes"? 

Those who define Psychology as "the science of the soul," or "the 
science of mind," or "the science of the facts or phenomena of self," 



10 A Syllabus of Psychology 

recognize a unity and integrity of personal life that is not regarded in 
the definitions just considered. Some psychologists, especially those who 
have "si Psychology without a soul," object to the metaphysical pre- 
suppositions and implications of these definitions; but they are analo- 
gous to defining Physics as ''the science of matter," or "the science of 
inorganic nature," and are no more objectionable from the standpoint 
of philosophy than the commonly accepted definitions of other sciences. 
In Ladd's widely approved definition of Psychology as "the science 
of the states of consciousness as such," the words "as such" are added 
to restrict the subject matter of the study to the facts of mental life as 
facts, without metaphysical assumptions or speculations. The student 
should, however, bear in mind that no scientific study of "facts" is 
possible apart from a "working hypothesis," and that all true science 
deals constructively with its data in formulating laws and outlining 
theories. What does Ladd mean by "states of consciousness"? In a 
similar way Bowne seeks to limit the field in his definition "the science of 
mental facts and processes." There is certainly much more room for 
metaphysical theory in James's definition as "the science of mental life, 
both of its phenomena and its conditions." What does he mean by 
" mental life "; and are its "conditions" merely the bodily aspects of 
such life? 

Questions and Exercises 

Become intensely conscious of your personal existence. Do you note any tendency 
to localize your conscious being in a limited part of your body mass? Do you feel 
yourself centered in your head? In your chest? Can you localize yourself in head 
or chest at will? Can you localize your conscious self in the thumb of your left hand? 

Distinguish Psychology from Physiology, in subject matter and method. 

Define Psychology as a special chapter of the science of Biology. 

Complete the following definition of Psychology with proper differentia: "Psy- 
chology is the genetic study of human life as " 

References 

Bowne, Introduction to Psychological Theory, p. 1. 

James, Principles of Psychology, Vol. I, p. 1. 

Wundt, Outlines of Psychology, pp. 1-2. 

Stout, Analytical Psychology, Vol. I, pages 1 and 9. 

Sully, Human Mind, Vol. I, pp. 1-13. 

Ladd, Outline of Descriptive Psychology, p. 1; Psychology Descriptive and Ex- 
planatory, p. 1; Elements of Physiological Psychology, pp. 1-2. 

Baldwin, Handbook of Psychology, Vol. I, pp. 1-8; Elements of Psychology, p. 1. 

Dewey, Psychology, p. 1. 

Titchener, Outline of Psychology, pp. 6-11. 

Munsterberg, Psychology, General and Applied, pp. 7-18. 

Dunlap, System of Psychology, pp. 1-5. 

Pillsbury, Essentials of Psychology, pp. 1-5. 

Yerkes, Introduction to Psychology, p. 57. 

Royce, Outlines of Psychology, p. 1. 

Spiller, Mind of Man. p. 37. 

Hoffding, Outlines of Psychology, p. 1. 

Judd, Psychology, pp. 1 and 13. 

Angell, Psychology, p. 1. 

Calkins, First Book in Psychology, p, 1-6. 

Dexter and Garlick, Psychology in the Schoolroom, pp. 1-2. 

Encyclopedia Britannica, Ward's article, Vol. XX, pp. 43-44; also in Werner's 
American Supplement, Vol. XXVIII, p. 513. 

Baldwin's Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology, Vol. II, p. 382. 



A Syllabus of Psychology 11 

2. Psychology a science. The major genus in the definition of 
Psychology in the preceding section is ^'science"; the assertion is that 
Psychology is a science. Now, the justification of the claim to rank our 
study as a science depends upon both its method and its subject matter; 
its method is ''scientific,^' and its materials are worthy the critical 
explanatory investigations of its students. 

(a) Method in science. Whether any body of knowledge or field 
of study is a science is primarily a question of method. Karl Pearson 
(Grammar of Science) says, ''The unity of all science consists alone in 
its method, not in its material. The man who classifies facts of any kind 
whatever, who sees their mutual relation and describes their sequence, 
is applying the scientific method and is a man of science. It is not the 
facts themselves which form science, but the method in which they are 
dealt with." What is "the scientific method"; and is it true that any 
related body of knowledge, however unworthy of serious inquiry its sub- 
ject may be, may truly become a science? 

(b) Materials of Psychology scientific. A little reflection will 
convince the student that the events of personal life as given in individual 
consciousnesses are worthy materials of scientific investigation; and as 
he progresses in his study and learns to see these facts more clearly, the 
field of his science will become definitely fixed. He will find in the work- 
ings of his own mind an unsurpassed field of critical study, a well defined 
group of facts to whose description and explanation he may profitably 
devote his highest efforts. The subject matter of Psychology, when 
accurately defined, is as attractive to the scientist as the field of Mete- 
orology or Geometry. 

(c) Psychology an actual science. The right of Psychology to be 
called a science does not depend upon the amount of knowledge that has 
been acquired regarding mental processes; if the method of the psychol- 
ogist is scientific and his materials worthy of critical study, the fact that 
his branch of knowledge as defined today is comparatively new cannot 
debar it from the family of sciences. However, Psychology is more than 
"a science in posse ^ ] it is a science in esse,^ and its "Weber's Law" 
is surely as scientific as the "laws of sliding friction" in Physics, though 
its "coefficients" may not be quite so arbitrarily established. 

Questions and Exercises 

What is a science? Distinguish the science of agriculture from the art of farming. 

Show that the distinction between two sciences is not found in the matters with 
which they deal, but in the point of view; distinguish Geology and Geography. 

Is there a science of shoemaking, either already existing or a possible development? 

Pinch the back of your hand, in the metacarpal region, for several seconds with 
uniform pressure of your nails; note introspectively the mental facts of touch and 
pain. Do you think it possible to make as critical study of such facts as of the facts 
of the formation of clouds for a summer shower? 

References 

Pearson, Grammar of Science, p. 14 et. seq. 
Calkins, Introduction to Psychology, pp. 3-7. 
Fairbanks, Introduction to Sociology, pp. 18-33. 
Mackenzie, Manual of Ethics, pp. 5-6 and 20-22. 



12 A Syllabus of Psychology 

Ladd, Outlines of Descriptive Psychology, p. 6; Psychology Descriptive and 
Explanatory, pp. 2-4. 

Titchener, Outlines of Psychology, pp. 1-11; Textbook of Psychology, pp. 1-6. 

Yerkes, Introduction to Psychology, p. 33. 

Munsterberg, Psychology, General and Special, pp. 1-6. 

Robertson, Elements of Psychology, pp. 1-11. 

Sully, Human Mind, Vol. I, pp. 1-4. 

Fullerton, Introduction to Philosophy, pp. 230-235. 

Hoffding, Problems of Philosophy, pp. 12-13. 

Report of Congress of Arts and Sciences, St, Louis, Vol. V, pp. 593-604. 

3. Subject matter of Psychology. The differentia of our defini- 
tion, '^ personal experiences as they exist in consciousness,/' designates a 
perfectly definite subject matter for the science. Psychology deals 
with conscious facts, facts as they are found in individual consciousness; 
or as Kulpe states it, 'Hhe facts of experience in their dependency upon 
experiencing individuals. |' 

(a) Two views of mind. There are two pretty sharply distinguish- 
ed views of mind in modern Psychology; the "structural view" and ''the 
functional view." In the first the events of conscious life are thought 
to constitute the mind, that is, the mind is nothing but a ''stream of 
processes. " In the second the mind is thought to be a substantial entity, 
a ding-ansich, of which the conscious events are the phenomena. Tfiis 
is a metaphysical question, the metaphysical question of all ages, with 
which the student of Psychology is not immediately concerned. Just 
as the student of Physics need not concern himself with the "substantial 
nature" of matter, but only with its "phenomena, " so in Psychology the 
matter to be studied, the events of conscious life, may be viewed indiffer- 
ently by the psychologist as a form of "becoming" or the manifestation 
of a "being." 

(b) Psychical facts and physical facts. The facts of Psychology 
are the conscious facts of an individual organism, while the facts of 
Physics are common facts, belonging alike to many organisms. Compare 
the physical "sound" of the vibrating violin string with the feeling of 
satisfaction or dissatisfaction of the hearer. A physical process takes 
place in space and time, and it is conceived to be independent of the per- 
ceiving mind, thus the snowflakes fall upon the mountain top where man 
has never climbed. A psychical process is not in space and time, and it 
owes its existence to a psycho-physical organism. In our experiences we 
share physical facts with others; but our thoughts and feelings (psychical 
facts) we cannot share with others. "Psychical facts are individual 
facts; physical facts are over-individual facts. " — Munsterberg. 

Questions and Exercises 

Be "aware" of your breathing for one minute, noting the sense of effort in keep- 
ing up the process. Why are we not aware of the process as it ordinarily goes on? 

Experiment with the nictating process of cleansing and moistening the eyeball, 
which ordinarily goes on unconsciously as needed, to discover whether you can become 
aware of it without volitionally controlling it. 

Explain Munsterberg's statement about the "individual" character of psychical 
facts as distinguished from "over-individual" physical facts. 

Try to project the pleasantness of the taste of an apple into the apple as a phys- 
ical "thing". Can psychical facts be objectified? 

What is gained by restricting the field of Psychology in introductory study to 
conscious facts? * 



A Syllabus of Psychology 13 



References 



Baldwin, Handbook of Psychology, Vol, I, pp. 2-6. 

Kulpe, Outlines of Psychology, pp. 1-7. 

Hoffding, Outlines of Psychology, p. 1 et seq. 

Ladd, Outlines of Descriptive Psychology, pp. 1-6; Psychology Descriptive and 
Explanatory, p. 1 et seq. 

Munsterberg, Psychology and the Teacher, pp. 31-32; Eternal Values, p. 134; 
Psychology, General and Applied, pp. 10-18. 

Sully, Human Mind, Vol. I, pp. 1-13. 

Titchener, Primer of Psychology, pp. 4-12. 

Wundt, Outlines of Psychology, pp. 1-22. 

Calkins, First Book in Psychology, p. 273, et seq. 



14 A Syllabus of Psychology 

Chapter II — Method of Psychology 

4. Psychological analysis. The method of Psychology is strictly 
the method of all modern science, i. e., analysis for the purpose of de- 
scription and explanation. The concrete experience is resolved into 
constituent factors, which are in turn split up into still simpler components 
and so on until the simplest elements are reached; the description and 
explanation of the experience depends upon a constructive synthesis of 
these elemental factors, noting the effect and value of each in the life 
event. 

(a) Psychology became a science only a generation ago, when, 
breaking away from a priori assumptions as to the nature of the soul 
and how it should manifest itself, earnest students devoted themselves 
to direct observation of the facts of mental life as they actually are. 
The problem of the new science was the explanation of the phenomena 
of conscious life. As a positive science it found its field in the description 
of the facts of personal life as revealed in consciousness ; and its explana- 
tions were made to depend upon careful observation of the facts them- 
selves, instead of upon preconceived philosophical theory. 

(b) The modern psychologist bases his description and explanation 
of the events of personal life upon an analysis of their structure. How- 
ever, the analysis of an experience does not consist in splitting it up into 
''smaller experiences," each with a kind of completeness in itself, nor 
even into separate "part processes" of knowing, feehng and wiUing, to 
be viewed as independent facts of life. While the botanist tears his 
flower apart that he may examine separately its stamens and pistil and 
the chemist resolves the compound in his crucible into simpler substances, 
there is no such partitioning of the events of life in their critical study 
by the psychologist. The analysis of an experience consists in distin- 
guishing within the unity of the conscious event phases or aspects which ' 
may be abstracted for critical observation. The study of ''feeling" 
by the psychologist is analogous to the study of color by the physicist, 
each is possible only by an abstraction which transforms the reality for 
its special purpose. 

Questions and Exercises 

What is meant by the ''method" of science? Show how the descriptions and 
explanations of science depend upon analysis; and contrast the analysis of Psy- 
chology with the analysis of the physical sciences. 

Try to hold your conscious life static for thirty seconds, noting introspectively 
the conative, cognitive and affective phases of the content. 

Try to annul consciousness so far as to "think of nothing". Does a mind become 
wholly contentless in the inactive state called "mental staring"? 

What is meant by "feeling good", when one says "I feel good this morning"? 
Try introspectively observing such a state when it occurs naturally in your life, noting 
its pulsating fluctuations. 

References 

Ladd, Psychology Descriptive and Explanatory, p. 14 et seq. 

Robertson, Elements of Psychology, p. 19. 

Sully, Human Mind, Vol. I, pp. 22-26. 

Baldwin, Handbook of Psychology, Vol. I, pp. 20-24. 

Titchener, Outlines of Psychology, pp. 15-18; Textbook of Psychology, pp. 37-41. 



A Syllabus of Psychology 15 

Stout, Groundwork of Psychology, pp. 10-12. 
Calkins, Introduction to Psychology, pp. 7-10, 17. 
Major, Elements of Psychology, p. 8. 
Yerkes, Introduction to Psychology, pp. 26-28, 73-83. 
Pillsbury, Essentials of Psychology, p. 106. 

5. Introspection. The immediate source of psychological data is 
the critical observation of the events of personal life as they are given 
in consciousness. Introspection differs essentially in its field from the 
extro-spective observation of the physical sciences. Just as the meteor- 
ologist finds the data of his science in space, so the ps^^chologist finds his 
in his own consciousness; the one looks outward to an objective world 
of physical phenomena, the other attends to an inner subjective world 
of mental phenomena. The place of introspection in the work of psy- 
chologists is emphasized by James in his usual cogent expression as 
follows: "Introspective observations is what we have to rely on first and 
foremost and always. " 

(a) To deny, as some leading psychologists do on theoretical grounds, 
the possibility of the immediate examination of mental processes is to 
reject patent facts. That a person is immediately aware of the events 
of his own life is a fact so universally accepted that no amount of philo- 
sophical speculation can discredit it. The existence in conscious life of 
ideas and feelings is undoubted both in the naive experience of the uncrit- 
ical person and in the reflective attention of th^ scientific student; the 
one great fact that has remained unquestioned throughout the episte- 
mological speculations of all ages is that we are aware of our own exist- 
ence in the activities of a personal life. Similarly the fact that atten- 
tion may be directed to this consciousness of events of personal life and 
that they may be critically observed is commonly admitted, even by 
those who assert for a priori reasons that such observation is "entirely 
worthless. " Whatever theory there may be to the contrary, we do know 
that there are mental facts revealed in individual consciousness and we 
do know that we may critically investigate such facts. 

(b) The subject-object problem in psychological theory is one which 
the beginner in the study does not need to solve. It is easy to ask un- 
answerable questions regarding how the mind can be both the knowing 
subject and the known object, how "consciousness is both the instru- 
ment and the object of inquiry;" but it can be shown that in all such 
questions there is an unwarranted assumption of similarity in the observa- 
tion of physical facts to the observation of psychical facts. There is an 
attempt to force the extrospective attitude of the physicist with its 
space-conditioned facts upon the psychologist whose facts are essentially 
unspatial and unobjective in character. In the introspective examina- 
tion of events in consciousness there is no such "objectifying" as is 
employed in the examination of the objects of Physics; the critical analysis 
of personal events for description and explanation is essentially different 
from the botanist's analysis of a plant structure. 

(c) The assertion that "all introspection is essentially retrospection," 
that "introspective examination must be a post mortem examination," 



16 A Syllabus of Psychology 

is not warranted by the facts. What is a memory; is it any more static, 
any more a thing to be objectified than an experience originating in 
direct contact with the stimulating environment? If a memory is itself 
a process in consciousness, is it any more adapted to objective examina- 
tion from without than the original experience of which it is in some sense 
a revival? Does the statement that the introspective examination of 
the facts of personal life is a post mortem dissection mean that there is 
such a thing as a corpse of an experience that may be floated upon the 
stream of psychic processes for analytic study? Is it not rather true that 
a life consists in the progressive reconstruction of experiences about con- 
tinuously changing image centers; and that it is impossible to conceive 
of any such flotsam as this view of memory implies? Whatever may be 
the difficulty in the direct examination of an experience during its prog- 
ress, such examination is the essential method of Psychology. 

(d) The statement is frequently made that '^introspection so alters 
the state of consciousness to be observed as to render the process worth- 
less for scientific purposes"; thus, according to this view, one cannot 
enjoy the taste of fruit and at the same time critically observe the cog- 
nitive and affective processes that constitute the enjoyment. While it 
is certainly true that attention to a psychic fact does modify that fact as 
given in consciousness, it is equally true that attention to a physical 
fact in like manner modifies that fact as known to the observer. It is 
not only true that all sciences transform reality for their own purposes, 
but also that all scientific analysis alters the phenomena with which it- 
deals to accord with a point of view and a perspective of the observer. 
In general the study of psychical phenomena presents no more difficulty 
to the trained student than the study of physical phenomena. Each 
requires proper method and allowance for exaggeration due to concen- 
trated attention and for errors of the '^ personal equation." 

Questions and Exercises 

Explain the statement that "each science transforms reality for its special pur- 
pose". Are the abstractions in Optics identical in nature with the abstractions in the 
introspective analysis of an experience? 

Explain the statement that "introspection is fundamentally intensified aware- 
ness"; and show that the "subject-object problem" involves a misunderstanding of 
the real nature of introspective analysis of personal experience. 

Shutting out, or ignoring as far as possible, the stimulations of your surroundings, 
give yourself to immediate awareness of the content of your own life, noting its kaleid- 
oscopic shiftings in efforts, ideas and satisfactions. Do this repeatedly until you ac- 
quire facility in "watching yourself live". 

Show that the statement that "One does not observe the mental state at the 
time it is happening, but examines it a moment in memory" indicates a misunder- 
standing of the nature of introspection and an equal misunderstanding of what a 
memory is. 

References 

Ladd, Psychology Descriptive and Explanatory, pp. 14-19; Outlines of Descrip- 
tive Psychology, p. 11; Elements of Physiological Psychology, p. 9. 
Spiller, Mind of Man, pp. 15-22. 
Kulpe, Outlines of Psychology, pp. 8-9. 
Scripture, The New Psychology, pp. 8-12. 
Dewey, Psychology, pp. 6-8. 

James, Principles of Psychology, Vol. I, p. 185, et seq. 

Stout, Manual of Psychology, pp. 14-20; Groundwork of Psychology, p. 13. 
Hoffding, Outlines of Psychology, pp. 16-21. 



A Syllabus of Psychology 17 

Sully, Human Mind, Vol. I, pp. 15-18. 

Keatinge, Suggestion in Education, p. 135. 

Calkins, Introduction to Psychology, p. 9. 

Villa, Contemporary Psychology, pp. 129-134. 

Royce, Outlines of Psychology, pp. 16-18. 

Judd, Psychology, p. 14. 

Morgan, Introduction to Comparative Psychology, p. 20. 

Morgan, Psychology for Teachers, pp. 71 and 77. 

Brackenbury, Primer of Psychology, pp. 6-7. 

Pillsbury, Attention, pp. 212-214. 

Roark, Psychology in Education, pp. 9-10. 

Betts, Mind and Its Education, pp. 2-3. 

Robertson, Elements of Psychology, pp. 13-15. 

Titchener, Outline of Psychology, pp. 39-41. 

Titchener, Textbook of Psychology, pp. 19-25. 

Angell, Psychology, p. 4. 

Munsterberg, Psychology, General and Applied, p. 48. 

Yerkes, Introduction to Psychology, p. 41. 

6. Inferential Methods. While the primary source of psychological 
data is the direct observation of the facts of one's own conscious life, 
there are important supplementary sources to which the psychologist 
may profitably have recource under well defined conditions. In the use 
of these secondary sources certain ''auxiliary methods" have been 
developed to supplement the fundamental ''introspective method" of 
Psychology. These may be properly called inferential methods to dis- 
tinguish them from the direct method of introspection. The most impor- 
tant of these secondary sources and methods are: (1) observation of 
the actions of other persons constituted like ourselves, as a means of 
discovering how the mind works of which these actions are the accepted 
physiological expression; (2) observation of the development of children 
as they grow to maturity of structure and functioning, seeking in their 
less complex experiences more easily distinguished elements, just as the 
student of Sociology turns to the lives of primitive peoples for data in 
his science; (3) observation of the life processes of defectives — the blind, 
the deaf, and the bodily maimed — as nature's ready-made "control 
experiments;" (4) observation of the imbecile, the insane and the 
criminal, whose biased lives throw a side-light upon normal life processes; 
(5) analytic study of literature, art, customs and institutions of peoples, 
as expressions of mind; and (6) observations of the activities of animals 
as manifestations of intelligent adaptation to environment. In the 
analogical reasoning involved in all of these auxiliary methods of seeking 
psychological facts the student is in constant danger of over-estimating 
the value of his work; he overlooks the fact that his own consciousness is 
the field in which all psychological data have value for his science. He 
"reads into" the workings of the animal and the insane mind facts of 
his own consciousness and deceives himself into thinking he has found 
them there. Nevertheless, with proper care this indirect method of 
seeking mental facts will yield good results. 



18 A Syllabus of Psychology 

(a) We study our own experiences directly; the experiences of others, 
indirectly. We find the facts of our own mental life immediately in the 
field of consciousness ; we infer the facts of the mental life of others from 
bodily signs. We accept the changes in the body of another person as 
the result of mental processes, and we infer what the mental processes 
are from known relations between body states and mind states. That 
we often make mistakes in attributing to others thoughts and feelings 
which they do not have does not wholly discredit this important mode 
of studying mental life; it only reveals to us our lack of clear knowledge 
of the relation of mind to body, and warns us against errors of ''personal 
equation" of the observer. Since all interpretation of the physiological 
expression of mind in others must be in terms of facts of the observer's 
own consciousness, it follows that the more closely the experiences of 
those observed parallel those of the observer the more reliable will be the 
data thus gathered. Hence the most important auxiliary source of 
psychological data is the lives of normal adult persons living under the 
same conditions as the observer. 

(b) Valuable data may be obtained by the psychologist from the 
judicious observation of the mental processes of children as they are 
manifested in bodily expression and conduct. The systematic watching 
and recording of stages in the development of infants is a field much 
worked in recent years by over-hopeful and over-credulous students of 
Psychology; but the attempt to differentiate from the general sciences 
of Anthropology and Biology a special science of ''Child Study" has not 
proved successful. Much of this Child Study, inexpert and quasi- 
scientific, is not psychological, and it has contributed practically nothing 
to Psychology. Even when the observations of the lives of children are 
discriminatingly carried on by trained psychologists in a proper search 
of mental facts there are peculiar difficulties in such study which render 
the validity of the results questionable. The persistent misunderstanding 
of children in the home and the schoolroom is a vicious fault from which 
even the psychologist seems unable to free himself. 

(c) The relation of the mind and the body, whether regarded as two 
separate interacting entities or as two phases of one indivisible "stream 
of experience," is so vital that any defect of the body (lack of eye, ear 
or other organ) lessens or impairs the mind also; thus, a person con- 
genitally blind or deaf cannot have ideas of colors or tones as persons have 
whose end-organs of vision and audition give them perceptions of the 
physical environment. A critical study of these abridged lives serves 
to determine in a negative way the place of the sensation factors of sight 
and hearing in the normal stream of consciousness. It is important here 
that the psychologist should know thoroughly the structure and func- 
tioning of the normal body-mind organism in order that he may correctly 
perceive and rightly value his facts, just as the physician must diagnose 
his case on the basis of what he knows of the healthy life. The chief 
difficulty is the observer's inability to distinguish the vicarious action of 
other end-organs from the normal action of the missing organs. The 
student should bear in mind constantly that he is not concerned with 
how one sense organ may by increased delicacy make up, in a measure, 
for the absence of another organ, but with the nature and conditions of 



A Syllabus of Psychology 19 

the psychic factors of the experience of the one whom he observes, so far 
as he is able to interpret them from bodily expressions; he is a psych- 
ologist, not a physiologist. 

(d) A systematic study of the behavior of the insane as a means of 
discovering facts concerning mental life in general is a field worthy of 
more attention than it has received. What is recommended here, how- 
ever, is not the alienist's study of psychopathology from the physician's 
standpoint; but the psychologist's study of the phenomena of conscious 
life in the mental aberation of those observed. A similar study of the 
feebleminded, the sick, and the criminal would prove profitable, provided 
always that the psychologist's point of view is maintained. 

(e) The creations of art — in sculpture, in painting, in literature, in 
music — are manifestations of the minds of the artists, which properly 
studied may be made to furnish some data for Psychology. In a similar 
way the customs, laws and institutions of peoples are embodiments of 
mental activities that may be interpreted by the psychologist. In fact, 
all that man has done or does, individually and collectively, is but the 
embodiment of mind to be critically examined by the psychologist in 
accordance with his well-defined working hypothesis. 

(f) When the student observes the life activities and behavior of 
animals in his search for facts concerning mind, he enters the domain of 
general Biology. If we are to define Psychology as "the science of mind" 
wherever and in whatever form it may exist, then we are equally inter- 
ested in all the phenomena of sentient life in human beings, in animals, 
and even in plants. Such definition is analogous to defining Geography 
as ''the science of the earth" to the obliteration of all lines of demarca- 
tion with Astronomy and Geology. Strictly Psychology is not even con- 
cerned with all the facts of human mind, but only with such as rise above 
the threshold of consciousness; it deals with conscious personal experi- 
ences, and a knowledge of all other mental phenomena is merely con- 
tributory intelligence in the fields of cognate sciences. There is much 
to interest the student of the general phenomena of life — of mind in the 
biological sense — in the systematic observation of animals; but such 
observations yield little for Psychology. He should especially beware of 
the credulous acceptance of the theories of life attributed to bees, ants 
and beavers by romancing naturalists. He is not concerned with the 
question of 'whether animals have minds', or 'whether a dog that has 
done wrong from the human standpoint has remorse' ; his interest in the 
manifestations of life in animals is determined by the hope of some help 
in the rational description and explanation of the phenomena of his own 
conscious life. 

Questions and Exercises 

Why should the study of Physiology precede the study of Psychology? 

What is the psychological meaning of the statement that "Everyone measures 
the world in his own ha If -bushel"? 

Become sympathetically critical of the life activities of those about you, inter- 
preting their thoughts and feelings as revealed in facial expressions and bodily move- 
ments. Upon what do you base your interpretations? Do you always feel sure of 
your facts? 

Observe closely the actions of a dog or cat; note critically your own thought and 
feeling about the animal, and ask yourself what makes you think that it thinks. 



20 A Syllabus of Psychology 

References 

Kulpe, Outlines of Psychology, pp. 12-18. 
Bascom, Comparative Psychology, pp. 2-6. 
Ladd, Psychology, Descriptive and Explanatory, pp. 16-22. 
James, Principles of Psychology, Vol. I, p. 194. 
Sully, Human and Animal Mind, Vol. I, pp. 18-22. 
Judd, Psychology, pp. 8-10. 

Dexter and Garlick, Psychology in the Schoolroom, pp. 4-6, 
Villa, Contemporary Psychology, pp. 153-165. 
Drummond, Introduction to Child-Study, pp. 1-95. 
Stout, Manual of Psychology, pp. 20-24. 
Titchener, Textbook of Psychology, pp. 30-36. 
Munsterberg, Psychology, General and Applied, pp. 50-52. 
Major, Elements of Psychology, pp. 5-7. 
Yerkes, Introduction to Psychology, pp. 44-45. 

Calkins, First Book in Psychology, pp. 160-162; Introduction to Psychology, 
p. 355 et seq. 

7. Experimentation is doing for modern Psychology what it has 
done for the older descriptive and explanatory sciences. It is in the 
psychological laboratory with its experimental research that the center 
of all systematic study of mental processes is to be found. That some 
leading psychologists speak disparagingly of experimenting in the field 
of psychic events is doubtless due, in part at least, to a failure to recog- 
nize the fact that experimental observation the characteristic indispen- 
sible method of all analytic explanatory science, must vary with the 
subject matter of investigation. Experiments must be adapted in aim 
and procedure to the field of the science in which they are employed; 
thus, the experiments in Biology differ in purpose and process from the 
experiments in Chemistry. If it is admitted that it is at all possible to 
observe events in consciousness and that it is possible to so control the 
circumstances of life activities as to produce such events at will, then 
experimenting in Psychology has precisely the same warrant in scientific 
method as experimenting in Agriculture. That the purpose and the 
limitations of such experimenting have been misunderstood by some 
over-zealous advocates of the ''New Psychology" and that some of the 
results have no psychological value should not discredit this mode of 
study. From its beginnings with Fechner, wonderful work has been done 
in Psychology through experimentation, and there is no doubt that the 
earnest worker, with rightly determined purpose and process, will in the 
future reap richly in this field. 

(a) All- observations of phenomena, in whatever field of investiga- 
tion, may be grouped in two well differentiated classes: observations 
under natural conditions, in which the student attends to the phenomena 
as they occur incidentally in the ordinary course of nature; and observa- 
tions under artificial conditions, in which he so controls and directs natural 
processes as to bring before him at will under the most favorable condi- 
tions the phenomena which he wishes to observe. Observing under 
artificial conditions is experimenting, in/ which the essential element is the 
intelligent observation made more systematic and accurate by simpli- 



A Syllabus of Psychology 21 

fying the conditions. The value of experimenting in science consists in 
the definiteness of the observation; the experimenter restricts the field 
of his observations with specific purpose and actively seeks within it the 
particular facts of his immediate interest. In experimenting the student 
(1) brings before him phenomena when desired, (2) repeats his material 
at will, (3) issolates particular phenomena for critical examination, and 
(4) uses mechanical instruments for excitation and record. The observer 
works under understood conditions, and is thus able to test theories of 
causal connection by varying the conditions. Since he, in a sense, makes 
his material when he wishes it, instead of finding it as in observation 
under natural conditions, an hour may give him greater results than 
years of waiting for nature to reveal herself in her ordinary course. 
Experimenting has been somewhat poetically defined as '' asking ques- 
tions of nature." 

(b) All that has been said in the preceding paragraph about experi- 
menting in general applies to experimenting in Psj^chology, making proper 
allowance for the nature of the material emploj^ed. A psychological 
experiment is the introspective analysis of a conscious experience under 
controlled conditions. The so-called ^^experimental method" in psy- 
chology is not a new source of distinct data; it is merely more accurate 
observation under specifically prearranged conditions. It is also possible 
to experiment in the interpretative stud}^- of the mental processes of others 
as manifested in their bodily states ; thus the student of Psj^chology may 
''experiment upon another" as the zoologist experiments upon the 
living animal in his laboratorj^ Where the students work in pairs in the 
psychological laboratory, the one who introspectively examines and re- 
ports the facts of his own experiences is truly the ''experimenter" and 
the other who merely aids in controlling the circumstances of his observa- 
tions is the "assistant." In the indirect experiment, however, the one 
who stimulates action in the other is properly called an " exprimenter " 
in the general biological sense, and the one upon whose fife processes he 
works is called the "subject" of his experiments. It is essential to clear- 
ness in his investigations that the student should note that the experi- 
ment in this indirect observation of mental phenomena in the lives of 
others is not strictly a "psychological experiment" in the field of the 
science. Each science must deal with its own data directly in its own 
field. The subject matter of Psychology is mental facts as given in 
individual consciousness; and psychological experimentation is essen- 
tially employed with such facts in the consciousness of the experimenter. 

(c) The scope of psj^chological experiments has unfortunately been 
a disputed point. Some psycholgoists contend th,at the possible field of 
experiment in their science is a very narrow one, confined entirely to a 
kind of physiological testing of sense organs as the bodily concomitants 
of the elements of cognition. As "physiological psj^chologists " the}" 
have devoted themselves to investigations of sensations due to various 
forms of stimulation of the peripheral end-organs of the nervous mech- 
anism. They have persistently robbed Psj^chology of a proper scientific 
interest in the whole field of human experience; for there is probabh^ no 
form or phase of personal life that may not be criticalh^ examined under 
experimental conditions. A curious form of this biased experimental 



22 A Syllabus of Psychology 

study is shown in the attempt to discover mathematical laws in the 
relation of the physical stimulus to the psychic state. While important 
bi-products have been obtained in the work with "Weber's Law," 
''reaction times," and other conceptions of ''Psycho-physics," the fact 
that psychical facts cannot be measured precludes the possibility of any 
direct results for Psychology in such study. Psychological facts are 
qualitative, not quantitative; and a mechanics of the psycho-physical 
organism is unthinkable in the field of a true Psychology. The present 
great need in this science is such a defining of its subject matter and de- 
limitation of its field as will center the earnest efforts of research students 
profitably upon the rich materials of their own subject of study. 

(d) A psychological laboratory is a material equipment in building 
and apparatus to facilitate the experimental observation of facts of 
mental life. The construction and equipment of such a laboratory 
depend upon both the particular work to be done and the end sought 
in the work. There are a few standard pieces of apparatus for stiumlating 
action, registering results and recording time \Yhich are found in all 
laboratories; but the field is so broad and at present so vaguely defined 
that each laboratory worker devises and constructs his own apparatus 
to meet his particular need. Much of the direct introspective study of 
the phenomena of one's own consciousness requires very simple apparatus; 
more elaborate apparatus is frequently employed in experimenting on 
others in the indirect observation of mental facts. Doubtless as the 
center of interest shifts from the attempted quantitative investigation of 
the results of stimulating the sense organs to the broader and richer field 
of the explanatory study of complete experience in all its phases, there 
will be many more additions to the discarded apparatus in the lumber 
rooms of our universities, and new forms of delicate mechanism will be 
devised to aid in the analytic examination of emotions and volitions. As 
to their purpose there are two distinct kinds of psychological laboratories, 
just as there are in all the other analytic sciences; research laboratories 
and teaching laboratories. It is the purpose of the research laboratories 
with their trained workers to add to the sum of human knowledge through 
the discovery of new facts; the primary purpose in the teaching labora- 
tories is exemplification of known facts and truths by following along the 
trail of the research explorer. In the psychological teaching laboratory, 
however, this distinction is less marked. The material is so immediately 
personal and always so new that every student is, in a measure, a seeker 
for new facts. The laws of this science, so far as they have been formu- 
lated, have less authority than those in Physics or Biology. The great 
need of Psychology at present is not the corroboration of some over- 
hasty generalizations in the field of Psycho-physics, but a careful analysis 
of concrete personal experiences and an honest search for facts of a strictly 
psychological nature; and in such a critical study every student can 
participate, observing the phenomena of his own conscious life unbiased 
as far as possible by any preconceived theory regarding what he ought to 
find there. 

Questions and Exercises 

What is an experiment, in its purpose, procedure and result? Is experimenting a 
possible method of observation in all positive sciences, as Botany, Astronomy, or 
History? 



A Syllabus of Psychology 23 

Distinguish sharply between introspective self-observation under experimental 
conditions and experimenting biologically upon another person. 

Close the eyes and tap lightly on the table with a long pencil held loosely at the 
end by the thumb and first and second fingers; note whether the touch seems to be 
at the end of the pencil in contact with the table or where the fingers grasp it ; and see 
whether you can localize it at will at either point. Be intensely aware of each touch 
as an experience; and attend repeatedly, in turn, to the doing, knowing, and feeling 
aspects. 

Devise for yourself some simple experiment for introspective observation of 
mental states produced at will; and criticize your experimenting according to the 
general directions for experimenting given on page 6 of the preface. 

References 

Ladd, Psychology Descriptive and Explanatory, pp. 22-24; Primer of Psychology, 
pp. 11-12. 

Wundt, Outhnes of Psychology, pp. 23-28. 

Sully, Human Mind, Vol. I, pp. 22, 30, 31. 

Stout, Analytical Psychology, Vol. I, p. 11. 

James, Principles of Psychology, Vol. I, pp. 192 and 193. 

Spiller, Mind of Man, pp. 34-37. 

Scripture, The New Psychology, p. 53 et seq. 

Royce, Outlines of Psychology, pp. 18-19. 

Judd, Psychology, pp. 5-7. 

Hoffding, Outlines of Psychology, p. 21. 

Dewey, Psychology, p. 9. 

Calkins, Introduction to Psychology, pp. 10-11. 

Titchener, Experimental Psychology, Vol. I, part I, pp. xiii-xviii. 

Witmer, Analytical Psychology, pp. xix-xxvi. 

Myers, Textbook of Experimental Psychology, pp. 1-10. 

Munsterberg, Psychology, General and Applied, pp. 52-58. 

Yerkes, Introduction to Psychology, pp. 45-48. 



24 A Syllabus of Psychology 

Chapter III — Field of Psychology 

8. A study of conscious human life. Psychology is one of a 
group of sciences that deal directly with human nature and human affairs. 
Its special field is determined by its limitation in subject matter and its 
point of view. It is a study of the events of personal life in much the 
same way as modern History is a study of the events in the life of a social 
organism. History, as a science, is a phase of genetic Sociology; so 
Psychology may be viewed as a genetic study of individual character. 
The psychologist deals with the life events of a human organism as 
biological factors seen from within. The concrete objects of his study 
are personal experiences as found in individual consciousness; and his 
work with such materials is possible only in the subjective awareness of 
his consciousness. The field of Psychology, then, strictly defined is 
human life as known in consciousness; it seeks to describe and explain 
the life as it manifests itself in personal experiences, analyzing them to 
determine what they are and synthesizing them into the organic structure 
of a human being. 

(a) While the temptation to the system-making psychologist is 
strong to extend the field of his science beyond the narrow limits here 
given, definiteness in investigation and clearness in discussion are pro- 
moted by keeping strictly within the proper field of the science. ^^ Ani- 
mal Psychology" and "Race Psychology" are interesting and profitable 
studies but they are not Psychology in any true sense of the term, any 
more than the so-called "Agricultural Botany" is a legitimate division 
of the science of Botany. 

(b) On the other hand, the student should endeavor to free himself 
from the present tendency of psychologists to restrict his field too much 
by placing undue emphasis upon cognition; the affective and conative 
phases of experience are at least as worthy of his study. Knowing is but 
one aspect of conscious human life, with which feeling and willing are 
inseparably connected. Our study should include in its scope an impar- 
tial examination of all the elements and aspects of personal experiences 
as they cumulatively build a human life. 

9. Distinguished from other sciences. The field of Psychology 
may be negatively defined by distinguishing it from the fields of other 
sciences. In tracing the lines of demarcation the student should remem- 
ber two things: first that the fields of sciences do not "overlap," each 
science being exclusive in its own field; and second, that the same phe- 
nomena may be rightfully examined, explained, and evaluated in two or 
more sciences, each science dealing with them from its own point of view. 
It is neither desirable nor possible to give here a logical classification of 
sciences, nor even to give a complete scheme of relations between Psy- 
chology and its more immediately cognate and allied sciences. What 



A Syllabus of Psychology 25 

is desired is to suggest some characteristics of a few common fields of 
scientific study in distinction from the clearly defined field of Psychology. 

Physics is the science, or more properly group of sciences, that seeks 
to describe and explain the objective world of matter and energy — an 
''over-individual," "independent" world of facts that may be analyzed 
and valued. Psychology is the science that seeks to describe and explain 
the subjective world of mind — an ''individual/' "dependent" world of 
facts that can also be analyzed and valued. The facts of Physics are in 
space and time; the facts of Psychology are in consciousness. 

Biology is the general science of life, both of animals and plants; 
it is concerned with the structure and functions of living organisms. 
Physiology in its more technical sense deals with functioning only, though 
in Human Physiology it commonly includes a study of both structure 
and function. Human Physiology is a study of the psycho-physical 
organism from the side of the body ; Human Psychology is a study of the 
same organism from the side of the mind. 

Epistemology is the general science of knowledge, with special 
reference to the validity of the knowledge, i. e., its relation to its objects; 
Logic is the science of constructive thinking, with special reference to 
the validity of the process. Psychology is concerned with the process 
of knowing as such ; Epistemology with the truth of what is known as it 
consists in the concord of the cognitions with reality. Psychology deals 
with the actual processes of reasoning as they occur in reflective cogni- 
tion; Logic, with the processes as they ought to be in effective reasoning. 
Psychology is strictly a fact science while both Logic and Epistemology 
have important normative characteristics. 

The science of Aesthetics has its contact with Psychology in the 
province of feeling; while in its Greek etymology the term denotes 
perception of the outer world through the sense of touch, in its present 
usage it denotes subjective appreciation rather than objective knowing. 
The psychologist describes and explains feelings as a phase of conscious 
experience; the student of Aesthetics objectifies the feeling of agreeable- 
ness in "beauty" and determines rules for its imitation in the fine arts. 

Ethics is a normative science dealing with the laws of right living; 
it resembles Aesthetics, the science of beauty of form, in treating of 
beauty of moral conduct. Psychology is concerned with understanding 
conscience and the processes of moral living; Ethics formulates the 
norms of right conduct as the realization of ideal individual and social life. 
Psychology furnishes the data for modern " evoluntionary Ethics," the 
"pragmatic," "energistic" Ethics of self-reahzation ; but Ethics itself is 
essentially a science of values, not of facts as such. 

History (political History), like Psychology, is a positive science; 
its province is the events in the organic life of a community of persons. 



26 A Syllabus of Psychology 

It endeavors analytically to describe and explain the progressive ideals 
and developing institutional forms of a social organism. Psychology is 
concerned with personal experiences and its data are essentially individ- 
ual; History is concerned with group experiences and its data are ''over- 
individual. " 

Pedagogy is the science of education, i. e., of the rational cultivation 
of another's life through determining his experiences. It is a normative 
science, and is related to Psychology as Politics is to Sociology. In the 
psychology of suggestion we learn how one may intentionally modify 
another's life; in Pedagogy, how one ought to modify it so as to make 
it larger and better than it would be without such intentional influence. 

Questions and Exercises 

Describe the subject matter of Psychology in the greatest possible extent of the 
science, including mental phenomena in all organic life; and explain the limitation of 
the field implied in the statement "all the data of the science are obtained in self- 
observation". 

Examine critically Dr. Calkins's definition of Psychology as "the science of self 
in relation to environment". See her First Book in Psychology, pages 273 to 283. 

Could Psychology be viewed as the "mother science" of all mind sciences, as 
Physics is viewed as the "mother science" of all matter sciences? 

Recall as vividly as you can a pleasant event occurring in your life in the past 
twenty-four hours, distinguishing in it discrete knowings and feelings. Note impulses 
to elaborate and modify the memory construct of this experience. 

Try energetically to attend to content in life just now, noting the opposition of 
impulsive flutterings to organizing movements. 

References 

Wundt, Outlines of Psychology, p. 17. 
Sully, Human Mind, Vol. I, pp. 5-11. 
Hoffding, Outlines of Psychology, p. 27. 
Hyslop, Elements of Ethics, p. 7. 
Creighton, Introduction to Logic, pp. 4-7. 
Stout, Manual of Psychology, pp. 4-6. 
Mackenzie, Manual of Ethics, p. 27. 
Judd, Psychology, pp. 379-382. 
Yerkes, Introduction to Psychology, pp. 19-21. 

10. Kinds and divisions of Psychology. Various kinds and 
divisions of Psychology have been recognized by writers upon the sub- 
ject, depending on divisions of the field and special methods of investiga- 
tion. V^hile the greater part of these '^ Psychologies" are illogically 
distinguished and place undue emphasis upon incidental facts in matter 
and method, a critical examination of their claims to separate treatment 
will serve further to clear up the definition, scope, and method of our 
science. 

Some psychologists distinguish between a General Psychology, 
dealing with the normal adult mind, and various Special Psychologies, 
dealing with the mind at some other stage than that of its best estate or 
with some limited aspect of the mental life. 

Infant Psychology investigates the less complex events of the nascent 
mind of children; Adolescent Psychology is concerned with the mind 



A Syllabus of Psychology 27 

of youth in the transition from childhood to manhood ; Senile Psychology 
deals with the mind of old age, when the catabolic processes of the 
body are in the ascendency. Psychology of the Senses is a study of 
elementar}^ cognitive procesess with a strong bias to a physiological study 
of the peripheral end-organs of the nervous mechanism; Psj^chology of 
Feeling is but a special chapter of Psychology proper, concerned with 
the affective phases of consciousness. Psychology of Art, Psychology of 
Religion, Psychology of Crime, etc., are descriptive phrases of obvious 
meaning. 

Psycholog}^ is divided into Individual (or Personal) Psychology and 
Collective Psychology, according to whether the phenomena considered 
are given in individual consciousness or are objective manifestations of 
the '^ collective mind" of contemporaneous or successive groups of people. 

The term '^Individual Psychology" is also used to denote a study of 
mental differences between individuals, for which Variational Psychology 
is a better name. Social Psychology has many divisions and names, 
such as Race Psychology, Ethnic Psychology, etc., all closely akin to 
scientific History. 

A very natural division of the province of Psychology, in the broad- 
est use of the term, is into Psychology of the Normal Mind and Psychol- 
ogy of the Abnormal Mind. 

Psychiatry, or Medical Psychology, includes both Psj^chopathology 
and Psychotherapy and is concerned with the improvement of bodily 
states and their physical concomitants through mental control. Educa- 
tional Psychology is a study of the process of cultivating the minds of 
others through the constructive intentional influence of the educator. 

Psychology is characterized as Human Psychology or Animal Psy- 
chology, according to whether the facts investigated relate to human 
life or animal life. 

Animal Psychology, also called Comparative Psychology, is really 
a phase of Biology, though it may furnish important extrospective inter- 
pretative data for Psychology proper. 

An attempt has been made to distinguish Genetic Psychology from 
the proper study of the mature mind in its normal activity, making it an ex- 
trospective description and explanation of the development of the human 
being through cumulative experiencing. While it is possible to make a 
specialized study of the growth of children from the mental side, it should 
not be overlooked that all Psychology deals with growth processes. All 
Psychology is djmamic, not static, and is a study of development. 

Psychology is also distinguished as Functional Psychology and 
Structural Psj^chology, according to the philosophical presupposition as 
to the nature of mind with which the student sets out in his investigations. 
In Functional Psychology all forms of ps3^choses are regarded as functions 
of a mind as a substantial entity; it is this unified spiritual existence that 



28 A Syllabus of Psychology 

perceives, and feels, and attends. In Structural Psychology the know- 
ings, feelings and doings constitute the mind, i. e., a mind is ''nothing 
but a stream of processes. " From the functional standpoint the student 
seeks to discover what mind does; from the structural what mind is. 

Both these psychologies deal with the same material; it is merely 
a question of the philosophic working hypothesis — not a matter of vital 
import to the beginning student, since on either hypothesis he will be 
able to make a satisfactory investigation of his own psychoses. 

The distinction between Introspective Psychology and Objective 
(extro-spective) Psychology is implied in most of the dichotomous 
divisions given above. In the first the data of the science are the facts 
given immediately in one's own consciousness; in the second they are 
interpretations of the physiological manifestations of mind in others. 
The comparative value of these two kinds of Psychology is the subject 
of endless discussions by psychologists. 

Most psychologists admit that these two methods of studying mental 
facts are complemental, though they differ widely as to the relative 
values of the two as sources of data for their scientific generalizations. 
Some regard introspection as "the sole method which we can follow"; 
others say that it is " rather to be used as an auxiliary of the other methods 
than as a method capable of leading the way. " It would seem, however, 
that a strictly Objective Psychology is impossible. 

The distinction between the New Psychology and the Old Psychology 
is based upon both matter and method. The Old Psychology dealt with 
the activities and states of a hypostatized mental entity, which, while it 
was loosely encased in the body, was not vitally dependent upon it ; the 
New Psychology, whether structural or functional, treats all forms of 
experiences as conditioned upon the body. The new study is of the mind 
as truly as the old, but it always has regard to the physiological concom- 
itant of the mental activities and states; its slogan is, "No psychosis 
without somatosis." While the province of the new Psychology is en- 
larged by adding to the explanation of mental states a determining of 
their relation to the body, the most important change is in method; the 
New Psychology has become a modern science by employing experi- 
mentation in its investigations of phenomena. The distinguishing char- 
acteristics of the New Psychology are thus the recognition of the vital 
immanence of the mind in the body and the use of the laboratory methods 
of all modern science. 

The older Psychology is sometimes called Rational Psychology as 
distinguished from the new as Empirical Psychology, since it attempted 
an a priori explanation of mental facts on an assumed nature of the soul, 
while the new seeks to discover meanings by observation of the facts 
themselves. On account of the approach to the mental phenomena 



A Syllabus of Psychology 29 

from the side of the bodih^ conditions the whole of the newer Psychology- 
is frequently called Physiological Psj^chology; on account of its method 
it is sometimes called Experimental Psychology. 

Questions and Exercises 

Make as complete a list as you can of kinds and divisions of Psychology, including 
those named in this section; and determine in what ones of those you name an instance 
of remorse for wrong doing can be studied. 

Compare the term *'new psychology", used to designate a distinct science, with 
"new education", "new medicine", "new agriculture", "new theology", etc., in 
contrast with "old psychology" etc., designating earUer treatments of the various fields 
in matter and method. 

Test repeatedly your ability to introspect successfully by becoming critically 
aware of simple experiences as they occur in the ordinary movement of your life; and 
when in any instance you feel reasonably satisfied with the result, write it up as you 
would describe what you see through a microscope. 

Are you conscious of the stars; conscious of pain in another person; conscious of 
your own heart-beats? 

References 

Ladd, Outlines of Descriptive Psychology, pp. 15-16. 

Ladd, Elements of Physiological Psychology, pp. 1-8. 

Ziehen, Introduction to Physiological Psychology, pp. 1-3. 

Angell, Psychology, pp. 3-4. 

Wundt, Outlines of Psychology, pp. 8-18. 

Baldwin, Elements of Psychology, pp. 8-11. 

Baldwin, Handbook of Psychology, Vol. I, pp. 15-17. 

Baldwin, Story of the Mind, pp. 1-7. 

Villa, Contemporary Psychology, pp. 154-163. 

Bascom, Comparative Psychology, pp. 1-3. 

Bowne, Introduction to Psychological Theory, pp. 1-7. 

Sully, Human Mind, Vol. I, pp. 14-23. 

Ross, Social Psychology, pp. 1-4. 

Buel, Essentials of Psychology, pp. 1-3. 

Thorndike, Elements of Psychology, pp. 319-321. 

Calkins, Introduction to Psychology, pp. 351-354. 

Pillsbury, Essentials of Psychology, pp. 13-15. 

Major, Elements of Psychology, pp. 2-4. 

Titchener, Textbook of Psychology, pp. 25-30, 43-45. 

Munsterberg, Psychology, General and AppHed, pp. 43-47. 



30 A Syllabus of Psychology 

ANALYSIS OF EXPERIENCE 

Chapter IV — General Character of an Experience 

11. What an experience is. An experience, in the province of 
Psychology, is a bit of conscious human Hfe, an event in -the personal 
history of a human being. It is a longer or shorter segment of the life 
current as revealed in consciousness. An experience may extend through 
hours or days, as when one's life centers for a time about the final sickness 
and death of a friend; or it may last but a moment, as when one brushes 
a troublesome fly from his ear. Life is a stream of cumulative experi- 
encing in which each natural division of the stream has a distinct unitary 
character. Each experience is determined by some formative image 
center, and it may be introspectively isolated from other matter in con- 
sciousness. As a concrete object of psychological study, it has a begin- 
ning, a development and an ending. One's experience is his real personal, 
present possession; it is always here-and-now in his life. 

The term ''experience" is used in common speech and in philosophi- 
cal discussions with various meanings. It is here defined in its technical 
meaning in the province of Psychology proper. It is used by some 
writers to designate all kinds of happenings to objects both animate and 
inanimate, thus, the caressing of a dog, the breaking of a twig, or the 
freezing of water is called an ''experience" of the animal, the plant or 
the water. For the purposes of our present study it is convenient, and 
not at all arbitrary, to limit the meaning strictly to the events in human 
life. 

Not all the facts of the human life even are experiences in the strict 
sense of our definition, but only such organic processes as arise in con- 
sciousness; that is, experiences are facts of conscious life only. With 
the biological facts of unconscious "reflex action" the psychologist has 
to do only in a general way upon the margin of his true field. 

A mind grows by its own working; and each conscious bit of work 
that it does is an experience. An experience is essentially active; seen 
from within, it is a dynamic process, not a static state. A body-mind 
organism does not passively undergo or receive an experience; it makes 
its experience through its own initiative and constructive activity. 

The etymological meaning of the term experience is trial. In his 
experiences the human being discovers himself through a more or less 
rationally ordered trial of life's possibilities. A life is organized experi- 
ences, progressively elaborated in body and soul. Each experience is 
reproductive and representative, as well as acquisitive and elaborative, 
making thus a continuity and integrity in the life progress. 

We account for an experience as a happening in consciousness by 
distinguishing two conditions of its existence: the occasion, or stimulus, 
and the reacting mind. Though fundamentally a self-originated activity, 



A Syllabus of Psychology 31 

it is also contingent upon circumstances. As to its objective content it 
refers primarily to the outer world of limiting conditions; as to its sub- 
jective processes, it is a stage of the evolution of a unified spiritual being. 

In every experience there is always something more than the indi- 
vidual fact as such ; there is always recognition of the transcendant unity 
of the life in which the event occurs. As given in consciousness the 
actuality of the experiencing mind as a substrate of the experience is as 
real and as unquestionable as the actuality of the material world imping- 
ing on the peripheral end-organs of sense. With the philosophical specu- 
lations which would explain away either of these two complemental 
factors of an experience the student of elementary Psychology is not 
concerned; he deals with a world of reals, in both subject and object. 

Doubtless the most satisfactory statement of the nature and phases 
of "experience", for the student prepared to read it, is found in Dr. 
Munsterberg's explanation of the plan of the Congress of Arts and Sciences 
at the St. Louis Exposition in 1904, as given in the first volume of the 
Report of the Congress. It must be insisted, however, that the begin- 
ner in psychology need not concern himself with the philosophical mean- 
ing of this word, of which Shadworth Hodgson says "there is no larger 
word" in the vocabulary of scholarly thinking. 

Questions and Exercises 

Contrast an "experience" in a personal life with an "event" in the life of a nation. 

What is the "now" of an experience; and what does the term mean when you ask 
an acquaintance whom you accidentally meet, "Where are you living note?" 

Watch carefully your life through the period of five hours as you engage in your 
usual occupations, to see whether you can distinguish in it a succession of discrete 
experiences. Does each event that you discover appear -to have a beginning, a grow- 
ing, and an ending? 

Recall in memory as many separate experiences as you can distinguish in your 
life in the preceding twenty-four hours, and make a list of them. Do you discover 
in this exercise a tendency to combine "shorter" experiences into more complex "long- 
er" ones; or does your critical retrospection move in the opposite way, toward the 
analysis of what at first appeared as longer experiences into shorter part experiences? 

References 

James, Principles of Psychology, Vol. II, pp. 619, 628. 

Judd, Psychology, pp. 13-14. 

Baldwin, Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology, Vol. I, p. 360. 

Kulpe, Outlines of Psvchologv, p. 1. 

Spiller, Mind of Man,"' p. 333."' 

Robertson, Elements of Psychology, pp. 51-54. 

Mitchell, Structure and Growth of the Alind, pp. 8, 83, 107, etc. 

Krauth-Fleming, Vocabulary of Philosophical Sciences, pp. 177, 661. 

Yerkes, Introduction to Psychology, index. 

Titchener, Textbook of Psychology, index. 

Dunlap, System of Psychology, pp. 6-7, 12. 

12. The procession of experiences. In the analytic study of 
the scientist a personal life may be regarded as a succession of events in 
consciousness; and some psychologists have even defined mind as a col- 
lection of segments of consciousness, a mere processional aggregation of 
mental processes. Thus the discrete events in a life history are viewed 
as pouring along like a school of minnows in shallow water. Professor 



32 A Syllabus of Psychology 

James, with his usual happy phrase, has called this on-moving body of 
psychic facts '^the stream of consciousness". Professor Titchener has 
defined a mind, as the subject-matter of analytical Psychology, as ^Hhe 
sum-total of the mental processes occurring in the life-time of an indi- 
vidual". In his view the mind of the psychologist's study is nothing but 
a stream of experiences, which may be analyzed into more or less elemental 
part-processes of knowing and feeling. Professor Royce accepts the idea 
of a stream of life events, but says that conscious life is not like "a shower 
of shot, but a stream with distinguishable ideas or other such clearer 
mental contents floating on its surface". He contends that '^beside 
and beneath what one can distinguish in his [consciousness] there is the 
body of the stream, the background of consciousness". 

The ''stream of consciousness" is the current of life events of which 
an individual is immediately aware; it is the procession of his experiences. 
This does not mean that the mind is ''chopped up in bits". It is con- 
tinuous; only the concrete events appear in time as a train of thoughts 
and feelings. It is interesting to note when one is looking from the car 
window of a rapidly moving train how he sees a succession of views, or 
landscapes, sensibly distinct from each other and without the dissolving- 
view effect that might be expected. Similarly the trained introspection- 
ist cannot catch the scene shifter at work as he transforms one conscious- 
ness into another. The human mind is a continuum; but the conscious 
experiences with which the psychologist deals are a somewhat loosely 
linked chain. Professor James's term "stream of thought [thoughts?]" 
designates rather the happenings that float into consciousness on the 
surface of the life current than the mind of which they are the phenomenal 
manifestations. 

In this topic we reach again the philosophic borderland of our study. 
As beginners in the science we must turn back from these attractive 
fields of speculation, assured that we shall find abundant material to 
investigate within the province of Psychology itself. The ultimate 
nature of mind, the theory of "mind stuff", and the idealistic construc- 
tion of experience will prove good food for later thought. 

Questions and Exercises 

As you become persistently aware of the content of your own conscious life, do 
you note a tendency of one event to pass over into the next, as a species of dissolving 
views, thus constituting a mental continuum; or do your mental states sometimes 
appear to move forward as a procession of stacatto discreteness? 

Are there ever two co-ordinate events equally in consciousness at the same time? 
Try to answer this question by attention to the facts, not by a priori theorizing. 

Explain Wenzlaff's statement that "the mind is simply a collection of segments 
of consciousness". 

Does the stream of experiences appear to flow more rapidly in your conscious life 
at some times thanat others; and does there appear to be any correspondence between 
the vividness of the states and the rate of flow? 



A Syllabus of Psychology 33 

References 

James, Principles of Psychology, Vol. I, p. 274 et seq. 

James, Briefer Course, pp. 151-175. 

James, Talks to Teachers, pp. 15-21." 

Betts, Mind and its Education, pp. 4-10. 

Ladd, Outlines of Descriptive Psychology, pp. 34, 390. 

Royce, Outhnes of Psychology-, pp, 82-88. 

Wenzlaff, Mental Man, p. 59. 

Titchener, Outline of Psychology, pp. 11-15. 

Titchener, Textbook of Psychology, pp. 15-19. 

Phillips, Elementary Psychology, pp. 165-167, 175. 

13. Relation of mind to body. Not only in life as a whole, but 
in every event of a personal life, the mind and the body are inseparably 
connected. This is the greatest word of the ''New Psychology", as it 
seeks by the analytic methods of modern science to understand conscious 
life in its dependence upon the body structure. In modern Psychology 
the mind is no longer dealt with apart from "the body in which it dwells" 
as a temporary lodger; the mind is no longer regarded as inhabiting the 
body as a man dwells in a house, through the rooms of which he may move 
at will without modification of their form or arrangement; the eyes and 
ears are no longer thought of as "mere windows of the soul" in the "clay 
tenement," through which the roaming spirit, encased in this loosely- 
fitting body, may occasionally glance at the world beyond its confines. 
The psychologist no longer looks upon the body as an impediment to a 
larger spiritual life, "a clog to the soul" in its upward striving. What- 
ever may be true of "disembodied spirit" in an existence after death, 
in the present life the mind lives in and through and by means of the 
body. The connection of a mind and a body in a personal self is not a 
mere association; it is a vital union, essential to the very existence of a 
person as we know him. 

The function of the body in life experiences may be viewed in two 
ways : the body may be regarded as the medium through which the mind 
discovers and utilizes the environment, or it may be regarded as the 
material expression of the mind's creative activities. Either view is 
obviously partial and onesided ; nor are they, taken together, completely 
complemental in the whole meaning of life. In the first view the ner- 
vous mechanism furnishes in its various forms of peripheral end-organs 
a means of contact with a surrounding world of independent facts, a 
world whose existence "would be as though it were not" if there were 
no specially adapted instruments by which to "sense it". Thus, a par- 
ticular form and rate of molecular quiver in the mechanical universe of 
the physicist is sensed as color by the mind through the special optical 
end-organ; and in this view the retina of the eye finds its sole meaning 
as an avenue of ingress of light impressions. In the second view the 
mind as a self-active entity realizes itself progressively in a body struc- 
ture. It grows with its body form; each experience of the unified self 



34 A Syllabus of Psychology 

enlarges and reforms both the body and the mind; and the human being 
as a body-mind structure is evolved through cumulative experiences. 
In this second view the mind is what it is only in its bodily form ; and all 
its conscious events are thus bodily conditioned. 

The study of Psychology presupposes a general knowledge of the 
human body, its organic structure and functioning. While it is cus- 
tomary to pad out a textbook on Psychology with a chapter on the anat- 
omy of the nervous system, such matter is as foreign to the book as a 
chapter on organic chemistry is in a treatise on Botany. From his 
previous studies in Physics and Physiology the student of Psychology 
should have obtained such a knowledge of the phenomena in those fields 
as to be able to orient his problems in his new subject; but with optical 
phenomena and theories and the histology of nervous tissue he is not 
here immediately concerned. Whether a monist or a dualist in philo- 
sophic theory, his material is strictly the facts of consciousness. 

For the purpose of the psychologist the nervous mechanism may 
be regarded as a central mass of tissue with radiating threadlike pro- 
cesses extending to all parts of the body; he should know in a general 
way the anatomy of the brain and spinal cord, the distribution and ac- 
cepted physiological function of the auxiliary ganglionic centers, the 
theory of the so-called sympathetic nervous system, the biological con- 
ception of the neuron elements of the tissue; he should also note the 
physiologist's classification of nerves as '^afferent" and ''efferent", the 
rather hypothetical division of the central brain mass into functional 
centers, and the common theories of "reflex action". But as a psycholo- 
gist he should not take these matters too seriously until he has entered 
critically into the province of his own science. 

A more interesting histological matter for the psychologist is the 
particular forms of end-organs of the nerves, especially the peripheral 
terminations of the ''afferent sensory nerves" by which he senses the 
outer world of physical facts. The tendency of modern biologists and 
physiological psychologists is to seek a special form of peripheral nerve 
ending for each particular mode of sensing the material environment, and 
also a special neuronic center at the inner end of such nerves. 

The theories of the relation of mind and body in human experience 
deal with a very attractive problem of philosophy, but they lie on the 
margin of our present field of study. They have, however, been given so 
large a place in recent psychological literature that the student will 
find it helpful to distinguish the leading types as a background of his 
studies. The theory of interaction postulates two distinct substantial 
entities, the mind and the body, which co-exist in such a manner that 
each is capable of acting upon the other or of being acted upon by the 
other. According to this theory the mind as a discrete factor in a dual 
being influences the body, and the body as a like factor influences the 
mind. Such causal connection is recognized between the two conceiv- 
ably independent existences as will enable mind states to produce body 



A Syllabus of Psychology 35 

states and body states to produce mind states. The theory of parallellsvi 
asserts that while tlie mind and the body lie side by side in so intimate 
relation that each fact of the one is associated with a fact of the other, 
there is no causal connection between, the two parallel series of facts, 
that is, a fact in neither series can cause a fact in the other. No attempt 
is made by the advocates of this theory to account for the synchronous 
variations of the phenomena of the two substances.' In its simplest 
statement it is an agnostic acceptance of the concomitance of parallel 
lines of phenomena without the responsibility of explanation. A third 
theory is known as the doitble-aspect theory, which regards mental phe- 
nomena and bodily phenomena as distinguishable phases of a single 
substantial entity. In this view the mind is one aspect of a reality, 
and the body merely another aspect of the same reality. The causal 
sequence is viewed neither as two interlacing lines of events nor as two 
relatively independent lines of paired events, but as a single line of events 
seen from two points of view; a mind-body entity produces mind-body 
phenomena. In addition to the three theories named the student will 
doubtless note in his reading various others, both dualistic and monistic; 
but those instanced here will serve as types in determining his own in- 
cipient theory. 

The second and third of the theories stated above are frequently 
identified as the same theory; ''psychophysical parallelism" is accepted 
as a loose formulation of what Bain has called the "theory of a double- 
faced unity." Both theories are regarded as monistic in contrast to 
the first strictly dualistic theory of interaction. The student should note 
that while he is naturally at first inclined to accept the dualistic theory, 
the movement of critical thought in our day is toward some form of 
monism. The phenomenal manifestations of ''mind" and "body" 
are accepted as but two aspects of one world experience. In any event, 
he should know that as a student of Psychology he need give his alle- 
giance to no theory of the philosophical conception of human experience; 
even in the farthest researches of "Physiological Psychology" one may 
be loyal to his science and be either a dualist or a monist in his philo- 
sophical theory. 

Questions and Exercises 

What is the psychological meaning of the expression "a sound mind in a sound 
body"? 

Can you cite specific instances in your own life to show the vital relation of mind 
and body? 

What is the evidence that the mind is in more intimate relation to the central 
brain mass than to other portions of the body? 

Try persistently for several minutes to create an itchy sensation on your left cheek 
by "thinking it there". Note the impulsive flickering of your attention to the spot. 

What is the psycho-physical explanation of "blushing"? 

Is the statement of Ribot that "We study psychical variations indirectly by the 
aid of physical variations that can be studied directly" the whole truth? 

References 

Sully, Human Mind, Vol. I, pp. 36-38; Vol. II, pp. 366-369. 



36 A Syllabus of Psychology 

Wiindt, Outlines of Psychology, pp. 358-363. 

Titchener, Primer of Psychology, pp. 12-18. 

Titchener, Outlines of Psychology, pp. 360-364. 

Kulpe, Outlines of Psychology, p. 4. 

Stout, Manual of Psychology, pp. 34-35. 

Spiller, Mind of Man, pp. 323, 33^. 

Mitchell, Structure and Growth of the Mind, pp. 1-24. 

Hoffding, Outlines of Psychology, p. 54 et seq. 

Robertson, Elements of Psychology, pp. 44-45. 

Strong, Why the Mind has a Body, ad lib. 

Bain, Mind and Body, p. 6 et seq, 

Ladd, Physiological Psychology, pp. 633-667. 

Ladd, Philosophy of Mind, p. 208, et seq. 

Ziehen, Introduction to the Study of Physiological Psychology, pp. 299-305. 

Munsterberg, Psychology, General and Applied, pp. 34-42. 

14. Three phases of a conscious experience. In his study of 
human life as revealed in personal consciousness the concrete facts which 
the psychologist seeks to describe and explain are the relatively discrete 
experiences which make up each individual life. He follows in his in- 
vestigations the analytic method of modern science, with the peculiarity — 
already noted in Section 4 — that the analysis of a psychological object 
is not a separating into parts, but a distinguishing by abstraction of 
phases of an indissoluble unity. An experience presents in the field of 
consciousness three well defined phases: self -expressive activity, ac- 
quisitive growth, and subjective valuing. Every person is immediately 
aware of these aspects of the events of his life ; and it is the primary pur- 
pose of the psychologist's critical study to give scientific definiteness to 
these three great categories of mental phenomena. The beginning student 
should, by repeated introspective analysis of his own experiences, satisfy 
himself of the validity of this fundamental grouping of mental facts, and 
thus prepare himself for a more detailed study of psychic phenomena. 

Knowing, feeling, and willing ( here named in the conventional order 
of treatment) are the chapter headings of the three great divisions of 
any systematic treatise on Psychology. As "the Intellect," "the Sen- 
sibility", and "the Will" they were to the older psychologists groups of 
faculties, " or "powers of the mind " ; and in their expository treatment the 
mind was partitioned into three divisions, whose separate functions were 
subdivided with a logical consistency not warranted by observed facts. 
In such outlined formulations of the science it was customary, as is still 
too often the case in modern treatments, to give to the Intellect by far 
the larger share of consideration, leaving for the other two divisions scant 
treatment. While he follows the beaten trail, the student should not be 
misled by this partiality in dealing with the forms of mental life into 
undervaluing feeling and willing. He should guard himself, at least 
until he has acquired some facility in introspection, against giving the 
cognitive aspect of his life any priority either in genesis or importance. 
Life is much more than knowing;, and each experience may be viewed 



A Syllabus of Psychology 37 

with equal profit from the side of its activity, its possession of its en- 
vironment, or its appreciative valuing. 

Aristotle's division of conscious life into knowing and willing was 
accepted almost unquestioned for more than two thousand j^ears. Feel- 
ing was regarded as a vague form of knowing. In the eighteenth cen- 
tury the German psychologists differentiated the feeling phase of con- 
sciousness; and Emmanuel Kant gave authoritative expression to the 
present tripartite view of mind as intellect, sensibility and will. Rous- 
seau's emphasis upon the feeling phase of experience contributed much 
to the acceptance of this new scheme of mental faculties. While the 
English psychologists were slow to accept the classification of Kant, it 
was more readil}^ accepted upon the continent and it has now universally 
superseded the earlier bipartite division. All attempts to derive these 
three aspects from a single root function of the mind, as from the will or 
the sensibility, have proved unsuccessful. 

The present three-fold classification of mental processes gives a 
very satisfactory working hypothesis, probably as consistent as the 
atomic theorj^ of matter in Chemistry; but it need not be regarded as 
the final word by the well equipped research student. One of the most 
notable attempts to discover another basis for the functional analysis 
of psychoses is that of Professor Royce, in his Outline of Psychology. 

Questions and Exercises 

Trj^ persistently to discover in some simple passing event of your life the knowing, 
feeling, and doing phases; and thus satisfy yourself that there is a real basis for this 
trichotomy in our common experiences. 

Define intellect, sensibility, and will, as these terms were used in "faculty" psy- 
chology. 

Intensif }'■ your awareness of your life at a time when you are pressing eagerly 
for^-ard in your study of an interesting lesson, noting effort, growth, and pleasure. 

Criticize the statement that "mind behaves in three ways — it knows, it feels, 
and it acts". What is the difference between "three ways of behavior" and "three 
aspects of one behavior "? 

References 

Judd, Psychology, p. 66 et seq. 

Bain, Mental Science, pp. 2-3. 

Baldwin, Elements of Psychology, pp. 52-55. 

Baldwin, Handbook of Psychology, Vol. I, pp. 35-41. \ 

Dewey, Psychology, pp. 15-25. 

Kulpe, Outlines of Psychology, pp. 18-22. 

Hoffding, Outlines of Psychology, pp. 87-100. 

Sully, Human Mind, Vol. I, p. 59 et seq.; Vol. II, pp. 327-329. 

Stout, Manual of Psychology, pp. 56-70. 

King, Rational Living, pp. 106-110. 

Yerkes, Introduction to Psychology, pp. 62-71. 

Dexter and Garlick, Psychology in the Schoolroom, pp. 19-27. 



38 A Syllabus of Psychology 

Chapter V — Cognition 

15. Cognitive Growth. A human life is a growth, presenting the 
two aspects of all biological growth: enlargement and organization. 
This is true not only of the mind-body organism as a unified whole ; it is 
equally true of the mind and the body separately as they are distinguished 
in common thought and in analytic science. The growing mind, abstract- 
ed for the purposes of science from its bodily concomitant, is enlarged by 
increasing its knowledge content and organized by the expressive recon- 
struction of itself in its experiences. The mind grows larger through the 
accumulation of knowledge; and it grows better in organic structure 
through its self-realizing activities. 

The term ''larger" as here used should not suggest increase in vol- 
ume of a material space-filling entity. It signifies merely greater abund- 
ance of qualities and resources, as when one through the cumulative 
character of experiencing is said to realize "a larger life". 

The process of enlarging a mind by increasing its knowledge is known 
as ''cognition ". Cognition, as one of the three primary coordinate phases 
of mental life, is found in every experience, that is, there is no experience 
that does not add to the knowledge content of life. 

Cognition (from cognosco^ to know) comprises the entire knowing 
aspect of consciousness, the mind's awareness of objective content. It 
is a common error, due doubtlessly to the artificial partitioning of the 
mental structure into "faculties", to restrict the term to the presentative 
elements of knowing, excluding the elaborative movements of judgment 
and reasoning; but a consistent classification of mental functions natur- 
ally segregates in one group all those aspects of mental life whose dom- 
inant characteristic is satisfying interest in "objects", and the term "ob- 
ject" designates as truly the demonstration of a geometric theorem as 
the finding of a dime in the street. "Thinking", in all its forms, is as 
truly cognitive as is "sense perception". 

Cognition is conditioned fundamentally upon a relation existing 
between states of consciousness and external reality. It is always object- 
seeking; and in its elementary forms it is a grasping of an outer trans- 
subjective world of reals by means of the bodily sense-organs. In its 
higher forms in which the more complex elaborative processes of thinking 
supersede the mere sensing of the environment, it is still essentially an 
awareness of an object as distinguished from the knowing mind itself. 
There is no cognition that does not deal with objects in the field of con- 
sciousness. Cognition is a true life process, and it is, consequently, never 
a passive receiving of impressions from the environment; it is funda- 
mentally an active seeking of life materials that may be utilized in the 
growing mental entity. It should be noted, however, that there is no 



A Syllabus of Psychology 39 

merely ''perceptive cognition"; there is always a constructive building 
side to even the most elementary form of sense-impression. 

Cognition is essentially conscious, that is, there is no such thing as 
^'unconscious knowing". While the human organism is continually ad- 
justing itself to its environment in thousands of activities in which there 
is no immediate awareness, psj^chologists restrict the term "cognition" 
to those adjustments which are given in consciousness. Cognition is 
conscious mental growth. 

A beginner in Psychology needs to g-uard himself against miscon- 
ception regarding the nature of "knowledge". Know^ledge is not a pro- 
duct, but a process; it is not a static result of cognition, but it is cognition 
itself. It is a dynamic process both in its simplest perceptional form and 
in its most highly elaborated forms of reasoning. One's knowledge is 
not something that he has, something "stored up'' in some way in a sort 
of mental granary, something conceived to have a kind of separate exis- 
tence apart from himself as its possessor and user; his knowledge is him- 
self, and it has its existence only in the actual processes of his growing 
life. Knowledge is the knowing phase of the mind and is identical with 
cognition. 

The question of the ultimate nature of knowledge, as dependent 
upon the reality of the external world and of the means by which the 
individual mind is able to relate it to itself, belongs properly to the 
epistemologist. As students of Psychology it is enough for us to know 
that we do know; and w^e may profitably confine our study to the pro- 
cesses of knovjing as w^e find them given in our own consciousnesses. 

Questions and Exercises 

Is the distinction made by Dexter and Garlick (''Psychology in the Schoolroom", 
p. 23) a valid one; does not the term growth connote both "increase" and "elabora- 
tion"? 

State clearly the significance of "expression" as an aspect of growth. 

How does "cramming for an examination" violate the laws of growth? 

Show that the effort to "train the faculties of the mind" violates the laws of 
growi;h. 

Endeavor to distinguish in your own conscious life the acquisitive from the elab- 
orative phase of growth in a particular life event. 

References 

Ladd, Outhne of Descriptive Psychology, pp. 308-311. 
Ladd, Philosophy of Mind, pp. 98-100. 
James, Principles of Psychology, Vol. I, pp. 216-220. 
Dewey, Psychology, pp. 15, 81-84, 156-157. 
Stout, ^Manual of Psychology, pp. 56-59. 
Baldwin, Handbook of Psychology, Vol. I, p. 80. 
Bowen, Hamilton's Metaphysics, pp. 268-272, 276. 
Dexter and Garlick, Psychology in the Schoolroom, p. 23. 

16. Knowing an external object. Considered as the reaction of 
the mind to the stimulating touch of its environment, the intellectual 
process by which an external object is apprehended exhibits the follow- 



40 A Syllabus of Psychology 

ing details: (1) an impression (physical or chemical) upon the body 
mechanism; (2) a vague blanket affecting of the mind corresponding to 
the disturbed state of the body; (3) an attentive focalizing of conscious- 
ness in this new mental state; (4) a localizing of the focalized mental 
state in a particular sense-organ; (5) a perceiving in the sense-organ of 
the knowledge elements corresponding to the stimulus; and (6) an ap- 
perceptive evaluating of these sensation elements in the life structure 
built up by previous experiencing. This gives us the following simple 
outline of 

The Knowing Process: 

1. Impression on the nervous mechanism, 

2. Sensation continuum, 

3. Attention, 

4. Sensation, 

5. Perception, 

6. Apperception. 

Of these the first is rather a condition of the knowing than a part 
of the process itself. It may be regarded as a change wrought in the body 
medium through which the mind grasps the material world, and not 
as an immediate affair of the mind. It is, thus considered, merely the 
effect of the causal action of some form of molecular vibration in the 
external material world upon the no less material body. 

In its nascent stage a knowing process is a nebulous, undefined mental 
state, vaguely given in consciousness as more of a feeling tone than a 
cognitive fact. It is true ''sensation continuum", a sort of a mental 
protoplasm out of which sensation elements are formed. By centering 
the conscious life in the blanket disturbance of the mental continuum 
occasioned by the impression on the nervous substance, the developing 
process is localized in a particular sense-organ, and the ''sensation con- 
tinuum" is converted into "sensations". Sensations are elemental 
mental processes that are given quality and intensity by being associated 
with particular end-organs of the nervous system. In "perception" 
these elemental factors are given objective reality as constructs in space 
and time — are attributed to the outer world as qualities of the physical 
objects acting upon the nerve end-organ. Perception identifies the 
psychic elements with the physical phenomena which give rise to them. 
In "apperception" the perceptions of external phenomena are interpreted 
in terms of the existing results of previous experiences. The new con- 
scious material is taken up into the mental structure through its rela- 
tionships to material already there. Apperception is a species of mental 
assimilation by which the new perceptions find a place in the growing 
conscious life. The process of knowing an external object is completed 



A Syllabus of Psychology 41 

in apperception, which gives conceptual meaning to the perceived at- 
tributes. 

In this brief tentative description of the process of knowing an 
object presented to the conscious life through the sense-organs, given 
here in anticipation of a more detailed statement in subsequent sections, 
there are two serious sources of misapprehension: first, it appears to 
imply a succession of steps in time; and second, it appears to find the 
origin of knowing in the action of the material outer world upon the mind 
through the medium of the body. 

The six detailed items given above do not constitute a succession 
of steps in a time series, that is, the impression on the body does not pre- 
cede in time the sensation state of the mind, and so throughout the list 
of elements. These six items are but distinguishable aspects of a single 
process, which may be abstracted for critical study, after the manner of 
all psychological analysis. 

Knowing is essentially mental activity, both in its origin and in its 
development; it starts in the mind's reaching outward for larger life in 
possessing itself of its environment. The mind finds its environment 
through the medium of its body; it is not passively awakened by the en- 
vironment. The branching nerves of the body structure with their 
sensitive end-organs hungrily seek for life materials, just as the tentacles 
of the medusa explore its environment for food. 

Questions and Exercises 

Trace carefully your knowing of a physical object according to the "knowing 
process" as outlined above. How does your idea of an object differ from the 
object? 

Is the contact of a bit of ice' against the cheek the cause of knowing that the ice 
is there? Is it true that I "must" under such circumstances "know that the ice is 
there"? 

What do you understand by "a perceived object"? 

What is the meaning of Gordy's statement that "sensations exist before they 
are known"? 

What do you mean when you say of a man "I know him"? 

References 

Dewey, Psychology, pp. 27-34, 159. 
Stout, Manual of Psychology, pp. 117-124. 
Betts, Mind and its Education, pp. 70-73. 
Lindner, Empirical Psychology, pp. 32-34. 
Buell, Essentials of Psychology, pp. 91, 94-95, 97-98. 
Yerkes, Introduction to Psychology, pp. 63-65. 
Calkins, First Book in Psychology, pp. 11-14. 
Halleck, Psychology and Psychic Culture, p. 83. 
Stout, Analytical Psychology, Vol. II, p. 1, et seq. 
Angell, Psychology, p. 132. 

17. The three aspects of cognition. Cognition, as the entire 
knowledge phase of personal life, has three clearly distinguishable forms, 
or aspects: presentative, representative, and elaborative. These forms 
of cognition are not separate processes or modes of conscious activity 
that may exist independently of each other; there can be no presentative 
cognition that does not involve representation and elaboration, and 
similarly of each of the others. 



42 A Syllabus of Psychology 

Once more the student should note that the analysis of a psychic 
fact is not a partition, but a discrimination of aspects. While a knowing 
process may be viewed as a presentation, a representation, or an elabora- 
tion, it is in every case all of these. 

Questions and Exercises 

Reinstate in your conscious life a mental movement that has lapsed from con- 
sciousness, and note critically the aspects of presenting, representing and elaborating. 

What is "an old experience"; in what sense are all experiences "new"? Are 
all experiences "elaborated complexes of new and old mental facts"? 

Distinguish the three aspects of cognition when you unexpectedly hear a clock 
strike. 

Contrast "a perceived apple" with "a remembered apple"; and note the per- 
sistent elaborative movement in each image. 

References 

Baldwin, Handbook of Psychology, Vol. I, pp. 80-81; Elements of Psychology > 
pp. 81-82. 

Murray, Introduction to Psychology, pp. 137-138. 
Roark, Psychology in Education, pp. 67, 79, 98. 
Snyder, Psychology and the Psychosis, Intellect, pp. 54-59. 
Baker, Elementary Psychology, pp. 52-57, 73-77, 108-112. 
Yerkes, Introduction to Psychologj^, pp. 192-195. 
Buell, Essentials of Psychology, p. 121. 

Presentative Knowing 

18. Presentative phase of cognition. — Presentative knowing, 
or ''simple apprehension", depends upon the relation of the knowing 
mind to the objects of knowledge. It is an acquisitive process, enlarging 
life by bringing to it elemental knowledge materials. The active mind 
grasps the phenomena of its material environment through the medium 
of the body mechanism. It presents the outer world before itself in con- 
sciousness, and thus constantl}^ lengthens the radius of its sphere; it 
finds its larger self in this conquest over the surrounding world of facts. 
It presents to itself, or before itself, the physical world by presenting In 
itself facts of its own activities and states. Presentative cognition in- 
cludes Sensation and Perception, as the subjective and objective phases 
of the process. 

The presentative aspect of cognition is characterized by the bring- 
ing to notice of a definite object of knowledge; it presents (brings before, 
prae-esse^ to be before) to consciousness a state of mind originating 
primarily in the bodil}^ contact with the material environment. In 
presentative knowing a mental state becomes present in consciousness, 
and thus becomes an "object of knowledge." The student should note 
that it is not the material object of the outer world that is presented in 
consciousness, but the state of the mind. Presentation is a modification 
of consciousness, and the object cognitively ^'presented" is a state of 
the mind itself. 



A Syllabus of Psychology 43 

Questions and Exercises 

What is ''direct apprehesion" of an object of knowledge; and why is it frequently 
called "simple apprehension"? 

Contrast, with concrete illustrations, the terms "apprehend", "understand", 
and ' ■ comprehend " . 

Explain the statement that "the object in simple apprehension is a state of the 
mind itself". 

Distinguish the 'strictly psychological use of the term "apprehend" from its 
broader general use. 

References 

Baldwin, Handbook of Psychology, Vol. I, pp. 80-81. 
Sully, Human Mind, Vol. I, p. 63, note. 
Stout, Analytical Psychology, Vol. I, p. 47. 
Baker, Elementary' Psychology, p. 52. 
Bowen's, Hamilton's Metaphysics, p. 268 et seq. 
Ladd, Psychology Descriptive and Explanatory, p. 231. 
Robertson, Elements of Psychology, index. 
Morgan, Psychology for Teachers, pp. 12, 66. 

19. Sensation. Sensation 'is a primary state of consciousness, 
originating in the relation of the mind to its material environment and 
furnishing the means from the side of the mind by which the personal life 
relates itself to its surroundings. ''Sensation is the common ground 
upon which the self and the non-self come together. " All knowledge has 
its origin in sensation; "there is nothing in the mind that is not first in 
the senses." While it is convenient to speak of sensation as "a state of 
consciousness," it must be understood that all ''states" of consciou-sness 
are active, rather activities. Sensitiveness to environment, or, using the 
term of more significance, sensation is an essential characteristic of mind; 
in its present state as embodied spirit mind is actively alive to all the 
world about it, finding its life in its lowest terms in sensation. 

20. What sensations are. Sensations are the elements of con- 
scious life, the rudimentarj^ forms of all cognition of the external world. 
As mental activities they originate in impressions made upon the outer 
ends of the sensory nerves by the material environment of the body. 
The}" are the materials out of which the higher forms of thought and feel- 
ing are elaborated. "Sensations are not knowledge anj^ more than wool 
is cloth ; the}" are the raw material out of which knowledge is slowly spun." 
— Halleck. 

Three components are distinguishable in the process of knowing the 
material environment: the active mind, the bodj" medium, and the 
physical stimulus. From the side of the mind as it seeks self-realization, 
it may be said to 'find the physical object in a state of the bod}^ organ'; 
or from the side of the material environment as it impinges upon the 
sensitive end-organ of the body, it may be said to 'cause the mental 
state'. In either view the fact is the same, the states or processes of the 
mmd associated with states or processes of the body in particular nerve 
structures and conditioned upon contact with physical objects are the 



44 A Syllabus of Psychology 

ultimate elements of all conscious life. Titchener's definition of a sensa- 
tion (with slight verbal alteration) is the best: "A sensation is an ele- 
mental conscious process connected with a body process in a particular 
body organ. " 

While it is convenient for the purposes of scientific explanation to 
recognize the material stimulant and the bodily state as constituents in 
the knowing process, it should be understood that a sensation is purely 
a psychic fact ; it is a fact of conscious life manifested in the body structure 
in its relation to its material environment. 

In opposition to the view that all conscious life is elaborated out of 
sensations, some, notably the Scotch philosophers of a generation ago, 
have held that certain fundamental concepts are given directly to the 
mind by ''intuition". In this use of the term intuition (note that it has 
another use also) it denotes a ''power of the mind which gives us ideas 
and truths not furnished by the senses, nor elaborated by the understand- 
ing". Among the knowledge thought to be obtained thus are the con- 
cepts of space and time. Modern psychologists generally reject this 
view, maintaining that all such ideas are empirically built up through 
experience of the material world in the medium of the body. 

The student should note that while we speak here of sensations as 
cognitive elements merely, they are the elements of all phases of con- 
scious life, including its affections and volitions as well as its cognitions. 
Sensations are related to experiences in the analytic study of the psychol- 
ogist as, elements are to compounds in the study of Chemistry; both chem- 
ical elements and psychic elements (sensations) are, however, to be re- 
garded as artificial abstractions for the purposes of the sciences, rather 
than real entities. 

Questions and Exercises 

Explain the statement that ''there is nothing in the mind that is not first in the 
senses". 

What is meant by "special senses"? 

Can we "have a sensation of sound without hearing anything"? 
"If we were deprived of all our sense organs, what means would we have of gain- 
ng a knowledge of the external world"? 

References 

Dewey, Psychology, pp. 27-46. 

Bowne, Introduction to Psychological Theory, pp. 39-45. 

Ladd, Outline of Descriptive Psychology, p. 168 et seq. 

Sully, Human Mind, p. 206. 

Kulpe, Outline of Psychology, p. 29. 

Titchener, Textbook of Psychology, pp. 46-49; Outline of Psychology, pp. 33-36. 

Munsterberg, Psychology, General and Applied, pp. 70-72. 

Yerkes, Introduction to Psychology, pp. 78-83. 

Dunlap, System of Psychology, p. 18 et seq. 

Major, Elements of Psychology, pp. 68-75. 

Pillsbury, Essentials of Psychology, p. 60 et seq. 

21. Kinds of sensations. Sensations are classified naturally ac- 
cording to the sense-organs employed as Visual Sensations, Auditory 
Sensations, etc. It is a tenet of modern Biology, accepted alike by phys- 
iologists and psychologists, that each distinguishable life movement has 



A Syllabus of Psychology 45 

its special form of nerve ending ; thus the retina of the eye is a nerve end 
specially fitted for sensing the vibratory movements of matter known to 
the physicist as light, and so of each of the other '' special sense organs." 
The sense organs sort out the various forms of molecular stimulations 
and give endless kaleidoscopic variety to the elements of mental structure. 

Visual Sensations are mental processes associated with body pro- 
cesses in the peripheral ending of the optic nerve, that is, they are con- 
scious states localized in the retina. The cognitive phase of these sensa- 
tions gives perceptions of ''brightness" and ''color". Man}^ interesting 
details have been Avorked out experimentally concerning these two sub- 
classes of visual sensations; but in general such studies are matters of 
Physics and Phj^siology rather than Psycholog}^ The dependence of 
brightness and color upon mixed and pure light or complementary color 
relations is of onh^ incidental interest to the student of Psycholog}^, whose 
special field of investigation is consciousness. 

Auditor}^ Sensations originate in the stimulation of the peripheral 
end of the auditory nerves by molecular vibrations. Sounds, as psychic 
facts, are distinguished as "tones" and "noises", corresponding roughly 
to the distinction of "colors" and "brightnesses" in eye sensations. 

Other sensation elements, depending for their distinction upon an 
imperfectly known variation in nerve endings, are Olfactorj^ Gustatory, 
Tactile, Thermal, etc. While many interesting problems relating to the 
various kinds of sensations are investigated in "Physiological Psycholog}^" 
a list of the arbitrarily distinguished kinds of sensation elements is of 
little value to the student of general Psycholog3^ For our present pur- 
poses it is sufficient to know that there is a growing tendencj^ to add to 
the conventionalh^ accepted "five senses" other forms of "special senses". 
Doubtless the discrimination of kinds of sense elements is as limitless as 
the discover}'' of new "elements" by the research students of Chemistry; 
but it may be questioned whether there is not in both cases an unwarrant- 
ed divorcing of states that are not essentially dissimilar. 

Physiologists and psj^chologists generally distinguish between sensa- 
tions originating in the periphery of the body mechanism in the stimula- 
tion of nerves from without and the so-called "organic sensations" 
originating in states of the body in its internal structure. While such a 
classification of sensations msLV, in our limited knowledge of the facts, 
be convenient for the purposes of description and explanation, it can 
never be a definite one. Every impression made upon a particular organ 
of the body with its consequent mental disturbance of consciousness as a 
whole and probably every organic affection of the whole organism may 
be localized in particular structures. 

The attempts by some psychologists to discover a common ground 
for the various senses, a primordial sense out of which the}" have been 
functionally differentiated, have much the same theoretical interest for 
beginning students as the similar attempts in the field of Chemistry to 
reduce the eighty-odd elements to a single element in distinguishable 
forms. "Attempts at unifying the senses have been chiefly made in 



46 A Syllabus of Psychology 

two quarters. Spencer assumes a primitive shock as the origin of all 
sense systems; while Horwicz traces every primary or secondary system 
back to the primitive sense of pain. " — Spiller. 

The human race have developed the end organs of the optic nerves 
through their functional use to such a degree of perfection and to such 
a primacy among the means of intellectual life that the race may truly 
be said to be ''eye minded". The perfection of written language as a 
means of cognitive growth doubtless contributes much to this exaltation 
of seeing as a mode of living. Hearing ranks next to seeing in the per- 
fection of the senses, the gamut of tones comparing very favorably with 
the spectrum of colors. All the other possible modes of sensing the 
material environment are undervalued in the partiality for seeing and 
hearing. Proper cultivation of the sense of touch would doubtless add 
largely to the volume and grace of human life; and tasting and smelling 
are certainly worthy as means of life of more consideration than they 
receive. A gamut of tastes may in a more highly developed human life 
of the future supersede the unscientific conventional ''sweet, bitter, acid 
and salt", or "pleasant and unpleasant". Smelling, the scullion in the 
household of the senses, but awaits the wand of the fair}^ godmother of a 
more critical age to take her true place among her sisters. 

Questions and Exercises 

Does the variety of sensations depend upon the variety of sense organs or upon 
the variety of stimuh? 

Why do people with "bad colds" lose the sense of taste? 

Why is the eye as a sense organ so much more developed than the nose? 

What do you understand by "the sense of sight "? 

Is it probable that we have "general sensations" not originating in special forms 
of sense organs, such as the "sense of fatigue"? 

References 

Royce, Outlines of Psychology, pp. 129-136. 

Dewey, Psychology, pp. 50-80. 

Titchener, Textbook of Psychology, pp. 55-200. 

Stout, Manual of Psychology, pp. 134-198. 

Wenzlaff, The Mental Man, pp. 136-142. 

Lindner, Empirical Psychology, pp. 41-61. 

Ladd, Primer of Psychology, pp. 34-43. 

Angell, Psychology, pp. 91-113. 

Baldwin, Elements of Psychology, pp. 87-103. 

Spiller, Mind of Man, pp. 50-58. 

Yerkes, Introduction to Psychology, pp. 93-101. 

Major, Elements of Psychology, pp. 80-81. 

22. Threshold of sensation. When the psychological activity due 
to the stimulation of a sensory end-organ is just sufficient to claim con- 
scious attention the sensory state is said to be "at the threshold." The 
"threshold of sensation ", is thus the line of demarcation between conscious 
and unsconscious relation to the effect of the stimulating touch of the 
physical environment. It is the state of mental disturbance, due to the 
impression of the phj^sical object upon the peripheral end of a sensory 
nerve, when the stimulation is just sufficient to give rise to conscious 
adjustment. 



A Syllabus of Psychology 47 

Sensations vary in intensit}^ with variations in the stimuh, the 
stronger stimulus generally giving rise to the more intense sensation. A 
ver}^ weak stimulus, while it doubtless affects the general tone of the 
mental life, does not so focus attention upon the disturbance as to give 
content to consciousness. There appears to be a kind of inertia in the 
material nerve structure, in overcoming which a portion of the mole- 
cular irritation is expended, with a consequent impeding of the mind's 
cognitive apprehension of physical objects. There are doubtless in- 
numerable modifications of the mental structure, originating in the im- 
pinging of the environment upon the bod}^ structure, in which there is 
no consciousness; it is only when the ringing of the bod}^ doorbell, as it 
might be called, is insistent enough to secure attention that the sensory 
state claims an audience in the forum of consciousness. Bowne says, 
'Consciousness is something which results from psychical activity when 
it reaches a certain degree of intensity, called the ''threshold". 

The threshold of sensation has also been called the "threshold of 
consciousness", "threshold of excitation", "threshold of impressiona- 
bility", "threshold of awareness", etc.; and it is uncritically applied to 
either the degree of the stimulus or the degree of the mental state, though 
strictly it designates a just noticeable degree of sensation. 

Questions and Exercises 

Notice critically how the sound of a coming train becomes first audible; also the 
first sensation of warmth as the fire starts in a cold room; also your sensing of the 
gasoline odor of a passing automobile. 

Why do you hear a sound more readily when you are "listening for it" than when 
it occurs unexpectedly? 

With the aid of an assistant test your sensitiveness to swe.etness of water in which 
small quantities of sugar have been dissolved until you are satisfied that there is a sweet 
stimulation so slight as to give rise to no sensation of taste. 

Test yourself to discover whether sensitiveness to particular forms of stimulation 
can be increased by habituation, as in the touching of different kinds of cloth when 
bhndfolded. 

Can the "maximal sensation" be explained in the same way as the "minimal 
sensation", as dependent upon the quantity of the stimulus? 

References 

Sully, Human Alind, pp. 87-88. 

Villa, Contemporary Psychology, pp. 143-146, 296. 

McKendrick and Snodgrass, Psychology of the Senses, p. 37. 

Jastrow, The Subconscious, pp. 413-418. 

Lindner, Empirical Psychology, pp. 35-41. 

Witmer, Analytical Psychology, pp. 25-26. 

Spiller, Mind of Man, pp. 47-49. 

Titchener, Textbook of Psychology, pp. 201-224. 

Royce, Outlines of Psychology, pp. 267-268. 

James, Principles of Psychology, Vol. I, pp. 534-549. 

Yerkes, Introduction to Psychology, pp. 110-111. 

Angell, Psychology, p. 114. 

Dunlap, System of Psychology, pp. 101-108. 

Kulpe, Outhnes of Psychology, p. 34. 

23. Quantity of sensations. An attempt to work out a mathe- 
matical relation between amounts of stimulus and amounts of sensation 



48 A Syllabus of Psychology 

led to the formulation of the '^Weber-Fechner Law," the first great law 
of psychoph^^sics, discovered by Weber but given definite formulation by 
Fechner. The basic idea in this law is that ''the intensity of a sensation 
is a function of the intensity of its stimulus. " The formal statement is, 
''Sensations increase in arithmetic progression as their stimuli increase 
in geometric progression", or " Sensations vary as the logarithms of their 
stimuli." 

This law is based upon the assumptions (1) that mental states are 
measurable and (2) that the differences in amounts of a particular sensa- 
tion are constant units. The first assumption is thought to be demanded 
by the requirement of positive science that all exact study of data result 
in mathematical formulation of laws, hence sensations must be dealt 
with mathematically in some system or other. The second assumption, 
that just noticeable differences in the intensity of a sensation are uniform, 
that is, starting with a conscious sensation state and increasing it until 
it is perceptibly "more, " and again until it is "more, " and so on through 
a series of perceptibly different states, quantitative steps from state to 
state are mathematically equal. There is probably also a third assump- 
tion in the minds of most who recognize this law, though not essential to 
it, that there is a true causal connection between the phj^sical stimulus 
and the psychic state, that is, that the stimulus "causes" the sensation 
and that there is a consequent necessary mathematical relation between 
the varying stimulus and the varying sensation. 

As to the question of "mental measurement" it is well for the be- 
ginner in psychology to accept the Scotch verdict of "not proved" and 
to leave the case, for the present at least, as non-suited. Munsterberg 
denies strenuously that there can be any quantitative dealing with psy- 
chic facts, asserting that "the psychic series is purely qualitative". 

Further, if the first assumption be granted, it is still to be shown that 
sensations increase by regular unit steps. This is not only not proved 
but introspection appears to be incapable of offering any evidence in the 
case. 

To assume, in the third place, that mental states are "caused" is 
to deny spontaneity in mental action, introducing into the field of Psy- 
chology an abstraction from the field of Physics and making all spiritual 
life mechanical. 

This law, which is of doubtful validity and certainly of little inter- 
est to the beginning student in General Psychology, is often heralded as 
the great charter of "psychophysics", marking the "beginning of scien- 
tific Psychology". Thus Titchener in his Textbook of Psycholog}^, 
page 223, finds in it the prophesy of a mathematical Psychology. He 
says: "Indeed, while little has been done in comparison with what still 
remains to do, there is no doubt that, in principle, every single problem 
that can now be set in Psychology may be set in quantitative form. 



A Syllabus of Psychology 49 

The psychological textbooks of the next century will be as full of formulas 
as the textbooks of Physics are today". On the other hand, Munster- 
berg says, "A mathematical psychology is impossible"; and he regards 
the law as "dealing with physiological facts only". See also James's 
estimate of the value of this law in the first volume of his Principles of 
Psychology, page 549 and preceding discussion. 

Questions and Exercises 

Discover by critical introspection your awareness of varying intensity of touch 
sensations; and determine whether the "moreness" appears as a definite increment. 

Is the assumption that mental facts are mathematically measurable essential to 
the Weber-Fechner Law? 

What is " a law of a science "? Is the term "psycho-physical law ", as designating 
the Weber-Fechner Law a valid one? 

Explain Royce's statement that "the psycho-physic law is not a law directly re- 
lating to our sensations, but is rather a law of our reactions". 

Is it true that "the studies for the corroboration of the Weber Law are valuable 
only for their bi-products"? 

References 

Titchener, Textbook of Psychology, pp. 215-223. 

Stout, Manual of Psychology, pp. 199-209. 

Wenzlaff, The Mental Man, pp. 143-145. 

James, Principles of Psychology, Vol. I, pp. 533-549. 

James, Briefer Course in Psychology, pp. 16-24, 

SpHler, Mind of Man, pp. 31-34. 

Witmer, Analytical Psychology, pp. 204-218. 

Sanford, Experimental Psychology, pp. 333-362. 

Ladd, Elements of Physiological Psychology, pp. 356-381. 

Ladd, Psychology, Descriptive and Explanatory, pp. 136-140. 

Judd, Psychology, pp. 128-130. 

Myers, Textbook in Experimental Psychology, pp. 201-255. 

Wundt, Outlines of Psychology, pp. 281-287. 

Ribot, German Psychology of Today, pp. 134-187. 

Villa, Contemporary Psychology, pp. 137-152. 

Yerkes, Introduction to Psychology, pp. 31, 262-264. 

Pillsbury, Essentials of Psychology, pp. 98-101. 

Baldwin, Elements of Psychology, pp. 103-106. 

Dewey, Psychology, p. 52. 

Dunlap, System of Psychology, pp. 109-119. 

Seashore, Elementary Experiments in Psychology, pp. 91-103. 

24. Localizing sensations in the body structure. Sensations 
are consciously localized in particular parts of the body, — are referred to 
particular end-organs in which they originate, — are given nativity in 
definite regions of the body world. The differential quality of a sensa- 
tion by virtue of which it is localized in the process of perception is called 
its ''local sign. " ''By a local sign is understood that peculiar coloring of 
a sensation which depends, not on the outer object as such, but on the 
direction of its attack against the periphery of the sensory nerves." 
— Lindner. "Local signature is that differential quality of a sensation 
which varies with the part of the sensitive surface stimulated and not with 
the nature of the stimulus. ^'^ — Stout. The local sign is the characteristic 
of a sensation by which the unified self localizes it in that part of its body 
structure in which it originates, and thus.in perception projects it outward 
to its physical excitant in the material environment. 



50 A Syllabus of Psychology 

James, with his usual clearness and consistent loyalty to Psychology 
in its own field, makes an effective protest against cumbering the con- 
ception of the '4ocal sign" with theories of space perception. The 
existence of a peculiar quality of a sensation by virtue of which it is 
associated with a local affection of the body is not primarily a matter of 
space, and it may be accepted by the student as a sort of local stamp or 
organ signature which gives it value in the constructive life movement. 
While it is ''where" in the body, it is ''what" in the mind. 

While the local sign of a sensation is in general sufficiently definite 
to cause a ready reference of the mental state to the organ stimulated, 
it is by no means uncommon for a second, or "concomitant sensation", 
to originate in the same stimulation, that is, two sensations accompany 
the impression made upon one end-organ, one referred directly to the 
region affected and the other to some other region or organ. The most 
common forms of this " synaesthesia " are known as "photism" and 
"phonism". They are an interesting subject of psychological inquiry 
as yet but little understood. 

Questions and Exercises 

"Touch yourself in several places with the same object, and analyze out, as far 
as you can, the particular quality of the sensation by which you recognize the place 
touched." — Sanford. 

When blindfolded, have an assistant touch with a pencil various points on your 
face and name or describe orally the point touched in each case, immediately upon the 
touching; as you thus consciously localize the touch sensation, ask yourself whether 
such localization is analogous to telling where a book is in the space world. Is the 
"local sign" a mere space reference; or is it a quality of the sensation as such? 

Can you discover in yourself any forms of synaesthesia, such as "colored hear- 
ing"? 

Is the possible confusion of sensations in synaesthesia due to a primordial "sensa- 
tion continuum" out of which they are differentiated in the growing complexity of 
life? "A color, taken in itself, is simply our differentiation of a sensory continuum, 
and a sound, taken in itself, is another". — Dewey, Psychology, page 36. 

References 

Lindner, Empirical Psychology, pp. 68-70. 

Titchener, Outline of Psychology, pp. 167-169. 

Titchener, Textbook of Psychology, pp. 194-200. 

Ribot, German Psychology of Today, pp. 68-95. 

Stout, Manual of Psychology, p. 332. 

Ladd, Outline of Descriptive Psychology, pp. 179-181. 

Ladd, Elements of Physiological Psychology, pp. 386-387, 396-398. ' 

Ladd, Primer of Psychology, p. 50. 

James, Principles of Psychology, Vol. II, pp. 155-166. 

Wundt, Outlines of Psychology, p. 116. 

Hoffding, Outlines of Psychology, p. 200. 

Murrav, Introduction to Psychology, p. 359. 

Wenzlaff, The Mental Man, p. 147. 

Buell, Essentials of Psychology, pp. 74-76. 

Sanford, Experimental Psychology, pp. 1-2. 

Witmer, Analytical Psycholog}-, pp. 110-113. 

Baldwin, Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology, "local sign", "synaesthesia". 

Calkins, First Book in Psychology, pp. 335-337. 

Dunlap, System of Psychology, pp. 35, 137-145. 

Dewey, Psychology, pp. 34-36. 

25. Centrally aroused sensations. Two modes of origin of sensa- 
tions may be distinguished : the action of external stimuh upon the periph- 



A Syllabus of Psychology 51 

eral end-organs of the nervous system, and internal stimuli acting as 
exciting causes operating directly upon cortical areas of the brain. Titch- 
ener says, ''Sensations ma}^ be aroused centrally as well as peripherally, " 
and 'Hhe}^ are just as much sensations in the former case as in the latter." 
Again he says, "Sensations arise in two ways: from peripheral stimula- 
tion (flash of yellow light) and from central excitation (remembrance 
or imagination of j^ellow)"; and ''a remembered 'yellow' and a seen 
'yellow' are just the same as sensations, as 'yellows'." To get the 
full significance of these statements of Professor Titchener we must bear 
in mind his definition of sensations, "Sensations are those elemental 
conscious processes which are connected with bodily processes in definite 
bodily organs. " This certainh' means that when one sees a dandelion 
in imagination he uses the retina in a similar way to his use of it when he 
se^s it in the direct stimulation of the physical light vibrations, though 
Titchener says, "the bodih^ processes connected with the remembered 
yellow and the imagined cold are central only, not peripheral." How- 
ever, if we accept the slogan of modern psychology, "no psychosis without 
neurosis, " and the conception of sensations as those elemental conscious 
states into which all cognitive processes can in ultimate analysis be 
resolved, we are constrained to believe that the ear, as the peripheral 
termination of the auditor}^ nerve, is employed in remembering a strain 
of music in a way quite similar, if not identical, to the way in which it 
is employed in hearing the strain from physical sound vibrations outside 
the body. Certainh^ in imaging in reproductive imagination the odor of 
concord grapes, close attention to the process will discover on its bod}^ 
side a sniffing like that in actively smelling the grapes held in the hand. 

Sensations are classified by Hyslop in his Syllabus of Psychology in 
two great classes with their subdivisions as follows: 1. Peripheral sensa- 
tions, those initiated by stimuli external to the sensorium, though not 
necessarily to the body, including (a) Epi-peripheral sensations which 
originate on the external surface of the body, and (b) Ento-peripheral 
sensations which originate at points on the internal surface of the bod}^; 
2. Central sensations, those originating in general unlocalized body 
states or in mental activities spontaneously initiated, including (a) Gen- 
eral vital feelings of vigor or depression, etc., (b) After images in the 
continuation of the sensation after the stimulus has been removed, (c) 
Dreams as reproductions of images and feelings not directly traceable to 
external stimulation of the nervous mechanism, (d) Hallucinations in 
persistent reproduction of images from central abnormal states, and (e) 
Deliria in images and feelings due to diseased states or artificial stimu- 
lants. While this classification is somewhat artificial and not strictly 
psychological, it is quite suggestive. The real question is, Do some 
sensations originate in states of the body and others originate in activities 
of the mind? The philosophical questions of the spontaneity of the mind 
and the interaction of mind and body are involved here. 



52 A Syllabus of Psychology 

Is the fact that a person without retinal endings of the optic nerves, 
as through surgical extirpation of the eyeballs after experience with 
perfect eyes had given him color concepts, can see the colors in his im- 
agination satisfactory proof that all remembered sensations are limited 
on their physiological side to the brain cortex? Do the stumps of the 
nerves still participate in the '^ seeing" process? What is the psycho- 
logical explanation of the itching in the toes of an amputated limb? 

Stout denies the name ''sensation" to elemental mental states in 
memory because they differ in some important respects from similar 
states originating in physical excitation of peripheral end-organs; but 
are not the points of similarity in such states to what are called ''sensa- 
tions proper" sufficient to justify us in including them in the same class? 
It should not be forgotten that "sensations" in modern Psychology are 
abstractions apparently necessitated by the analytical study of a mental 
structure. They are the simplest conceivable aspects of life, involving 
both mental activity and concomitant bodily states. The mind works 
in the body, and for the purposes of the psychologist the space distinction 
between the outer and the inner end of a nerve is unimportant. 

The ability to produce definite bodily states at will is doubtless to 
prove a rich field for experimental study for careful unprejudiced inves- 
tigators. Dr. John Hunter, the great prophet of modern medicine, said 
two generations ago, "I am confident that I can fix my attention to any 
part until I have a sensation in that part"; and a later eminent American 
physician, D. Hack Tuke, said, "There is no sensation, whether general 
or special, excited by agents acting upon the body from without which 
cannot be excited also from within by emotional states affecting the 
sensory centers, such sensations being referred by the mind to the point 
at which the nerves terminate in the body". 

Questions and Exercises 

Test yourself persistently in a variety of the experiments suggested by Seashore 
on pages 108 to 111 of his "Elementary Experiments in Psychology". 

Does your experience corroborate the statement of Dr. John Hunter in the last 
paragraph above? 

Distinguish a centrally-aroused sensation of a touch on the cheek from the after- 
image of an actual touch. Can you introspectively create a touch sensation at will? 

Does your own experience convince you that the persistent attempt to ignore 
an itchy sensation tends to annul it? 

References 

Titchener, Outline of Psychology, pp. 36, 108, 131-132. 

Titchener, Primer of Psychology, pp. 95-95. 

Ladd, Psychology, Descriptive and Explanatory, p. 95. 

Ladd, Primer of Psychology, pp. 33,-34. 

Halleck, Education of the Central Nervous System, pp. 213-214. 

Stout, Groundwork of Psychology, p. 37. 

Stout, Manual of Psychology, pp. 119-120. 

Shoup, Mechanism and Personality, p. 86. 

Kulpe, Outlines of Psychology, pp. 169-224. > 

Wundt, Outlines of Psychology, pp. 42-43. 

Gordy, New Psychology, pp. 166-171. 

James, Principles of Psychology, Vol. II, pp. 68-75. 

James, Briefer Course in Psychology, pp. 310-311. 

Pillsbury, Essentials of Psychology, pp. 147-152. 

Seashore, Elementary Experiments in Psychology, pp. 104-117. 

Phillips, Elementary Psychology, p. 155. 



A Syllabus of Psychology 53 

26. Nature cf perception. Perception is direct apprehension of 
the external world in the senses. It is the process of taking the outer 
world to one's self through the organs of sense; and since it is immediate 
knowing of the '^things" of the material environment, it has been called 
'Hhing-knowledge." Experience begins in the mind's conscious relation 
to some thing; with Kant an act of perceptual knowledge was purely a 
conscious relation between an individual mind and an individual object, 
that is, perception gives direct knowledge of discrete things. In per- 
ception we may discriminate the apparently paradoxical dual process 
of setting objects of sense apart from ourselves and at the same time of 
uniting them to ourselves. The ''world of things" is given in perception 
separate objective existence and is also made an inseparable part of our 
own existence as a perceiving subject. We project the thing from us 
while grasping it back to us, as a child plays with a return-ball toj^ Per- 
ception thus creates a world of objects out of a world of conscious states. 

Without entering into the general question of the theory of knowl- 
edge the student may accept in his theory of perception an actually 
present world of separate things distinct from himself as a knowing mind, 
which things he is able to unite with himself in a process of growth. He 
should look upon perception as a constructive appropriation of life 
materials from an external world of real distinct objects. 

Questions and Exercises 

Do we perceive objects immediately, so that the "perceiving mind" directly 
grasps the "perceived thing" through the body sense organ? 

Criticize Davis's statement that "In perception my state is merely receptive; 
I am strictly passive ' ' . See his ' ' Elements of Psychology ' ' , page 85 . 

Explain how "the same outside thing may arouse different percepts in different 
people". See Thorndike's "Elements of Psychology", page 36. 

Try varying perception at will, as looking at some article of furniture through 
partiallj^ closed eyes and "seeing it" as different things. 

Explain the reference to the return-ball in the text above. 

"Why is it that a hidden drawing in a 'puzzle picture' is so difficult to see at first 
and so difficult not to see when you have once found it?" 

References 

Ward, Article in Encyclopaedia Britannica. 

Bowne, Introduction to Psychological Theory, pp. 253-268. 

Ladd, Elements of Physiological Psychology, pp. 382-419. 

Ladd, Psychology, Descriptive and Explanatory, pp. 89-95, 318-322. 

Ladd, Outlines of Descriptive Psychology, pp. 58-60, 168-173. 

Ladd, Philosophy of Knowledge, pp. 148-149, 224-227, 250-251. 

Calkins, Persistent Problems of Philosophy, p. 423. 

Calkins, Introduction to Psychology, pp. 169-184. 

Powell, Truth and Error, pp. 226-236. 

Baldwin, Handbook of Psychology, Vol. I, pp. 82-85, 116-144. 

Baldwin, Elements of Psychology, pp. 111-127. 

James, Principles of Psychology, Vol. II, pp. 1-8, 76-81. 

James, Briefer Course in Psychology, pp. 12-16, 312-315. 

Hoffding, Outlines of Psychology, pp. 101-107, 121-130. 

Robertson, Elements of Psychology, pp. 94-99. 

Sully, Human Mind, Vol. I, pp. 81-82, 206-215. 

Murray, Introduction to Psychology, pp. 139-145. 

Mitchell, Structure and Growth of the Mind, pp. 213-217. 



54 A Syllabus of Psychology 

Spiller, Mind of Man, pp. 174-175. 

Titchener, Outline of Psychology, pp. 33-36, 158. 

Dunlap, System of Psychology, pp. 196-201, 227-229. 

Major, Elements of Psychology, p. 116. 

Pillsbury, Essentials of Psychology, pp. 156-162. 

Yerkes, Introduction to Psychology, pp. 160-161. 

27. Perception distinguished from sensation. The character- 
istic difference between a sensation and a perception is that a sensation 
is purely a subjective modification of consciousness whereas a perception 
always relates to an object. Sully defines perception as 'Hhe process of 
localizing sensations and referring them to definite objects. '' It is in 
perception that sensations are given meaning and converted into knowl- 
edge. Pure sensation, so far as it may be said to exist, is affective rather 
than cognitive, a state of consciousness due to the action of an external 
stimulus upon a sense-organ; it is a continuum of feeling tone, rather 
than a definite cognitive movement; it is a subjective state, which per- 
ception converts into awareness of the external object that gives rise to it. 
In perception sensation elements are built up into presentations of an 
outer world, which is thus constructively taken possession of as life mate- 
rials. This ''grasping of the outer world through the sense-organs" is a 
process of growth in which the mind constructs in itself a larger content of 
knowledge out of primordial sensation states. 

There is a definiteness of life in perception that is not reached in 
sensation. In sensation the mind accepts impartially the various affec- 
tions of its substance by the environment impinging upon the end-organs 
of its bodily concomitant, adjusting itself somewhat passively to the 
constant augmenting of its current; in perception it selects particular 
states for use in its own structure, so attending to them as to give them 
definiteness and permanence in the organic life, and permitting others 
to fade into the marginal field or to drop below the threshold of conscious- 
ness, never to have value in true cognition. In perception a particular 
sensation element is attended to, isolated from the general sensation 
continuum, and presented to the unified consciousness as a determining 
center of its activities. Perception is thus the beginning of a self-con- 
trolled growth by attentive selection of the materials and form of the 
growth. 

In perception a mental state is identified in terms of the concepts 
originating in previous experiences. While a sensation state exists 
without significance in the life current, in perception the sensation of the 
present is structurally related to the past. The meaning which per- 
ception gives to sensation depends upon the revival in consciousness of 
previous experiential supplements. Perception is a process of interpret- 
ing sensations by means of concepts; and it is the memory concept that 
gives value to the present sensation state. 

Sensations as distinguishable aspects of mental life are purely sub- 



A Syllabus of Psychology 55 

jective, that is, there is in them no conscious acceptance of an outer 
world of objects; in perception on the contrary, the individualized sensa- 
tion is projected outward by means of its ''local sign" to the world of 
environing things. Thus, the sensation of yellowness is by perception 
referred to the dandelion that occasions it, and we say, "The dandelion 
is yellow". "Local signs" are marks of sensations due to association 
with particular modifications of end-organs, which cause the mind to 
project its own states out to the material object sensed. Thus, the" yel- 
low sensation" is known as a "yellow object" in space. 

Questions and Exercises 

Criticise the statement that "sensation is a passive state, perception is an active 
one". 

What do you understand by— 

"What hears is mind, 
What sees is mind ; 
The ear and eye 
Are deaf and blind"? 
Is it true that "learning to sing is learning to hear"? 

Explain Halleck's statement that "To our mental ear sensations are all the while 
speaking, but their language is unintelligible until perception interprets it". 

References 

Lindner, Empirical Psychology, pp. 68-70. 

James, Principles of Psychology, Vol. II, pp. 1-43, 76-82. 

James, Briefer Course in Psychology, p. 212. 

Snider, Psychology and the Psychosis, Intellect, pp. 56-59. 

Bowen, Hamilton's Metaphysics, pp. 313-326. 

Angell, Psychology, pp. 118-123. 

Royce, Outlines of Psychology, pp. 119-147. 

Baldwin, Elements of Psychology, pp. 83, 111. 

Wenzlaff, The Mental Man. pp. 136, 158-161. 

Bain, Mental Science, pp. 27, 197-214, Appendix, 94-95. 

Dewey, Psychology, pp. 81, 156-162. 

Calkins, Introduction to Psychology, pp. 103, 169-184. 

Brooks, Mental Science, pp. 85-98. 

Halleck, Psychology, and Psychic Culture, pp. 59-61, 66-68. 

Betts, Mind and its Education, pp. 70-87. 

Salisbury, Theory of Teaching, pp. 86-92. 

Phillips, Elementary Psychology, p. 135. 

Major, Elements of Psychology, pp. 117-118. 

Robertson, Elements of Psychology, pp. 94-99. 

Dexter and Garlick, Psychology in the Schoolroom, pp. 57-61. 

Davis, Elements of Psychology, pp. 91-95. 

28. The "outer world" as given in perception. The student of 
General Psychology need not concern himself with the philosophical 
problem as to whether the apple which I ''see" on the plate before me is 
"a mere modification of my consciousness or a real existence." For 
him, at least, the world of matter exists as ''a permanent possibility of 
sensations." He may without compromising his philosophical position 
admit the reality of the world of "things, " and may limit his theoretical 
inquiry in this direction to the question of how the thing differs from his 
idea of it. The thing is perceived directly in the sensations to which 
it gives rise, and a- person knows no more of the world of material things 
than his organs of sense mediate for him. A ''thing," for the psycholo- 



56 A Syllabus of Psychology 

gist at least, is not "& mere group of sensations"; a thing is a fact of the 
environing world, and sensations are elements of personal experience. 
The sensation of redness is not to be identified with the molecular motion 
in the skin of the apple; qualities of the material object and activities 
of the mind should be sharply distinguished as belonging to two aspects 
of experience. I perceive the vibrations of the substance of the apple 
as '^red" and thus find a ''cause" in the outer fact of the material world 
for the inner fact of my sensation. It is essential to perception that the 
object known shall stand opposed to the knowing mind. In perception 
the mind isolates itself from the world of things which it perceives, setting 
the thing perceived over against itself as an admitted ''cause" of its 
sensation states. To perceive the redness of the apple is to find a cause 
in the outer world for the sensation originating in my relation to it. 

This admitting of a world of "real things" to be grasped in sense- 
perception does nob commit the psychologist to a dualistic theory of the 
universe; he may still be a monistic idealist and accept for the purpose 
of his science the separation of the known thing from the knowing mind. 
Psychology like all other descriptive and explanatory sciences, is not a 
study of "reality", but of reality as transformed for its special purposes. 
It hypostatizes a world of reabobjects separate from the world of knowing 
minds, and it seeks to explain mental activities as originating in the re- 
lation of the active minds to these objects. 

Questions and Exercises 

Give a brief summary of your reasons for believing in the existence of a world of 
physical objects independent of your knowing them. 

Look steadily at a chair for several minutes, noting its form, color, size, etc. and 
avoi di ng " mental staring ' ' . Does it seem as real to you as your own self as the looker? . 

What is the meaning of the statement that "the world is my idea"? 

Make a list of the sense attributes of an orange, and contrast them with the sense 
attributes of a rainbow. 

References 

James, Principles of Psychology, Vol. I, pp. 218-220. 

Dewey, Psychology, pp. 159-162. 

Pearson, Grammar of Science, pp. 47-53. 

Fullerton, Introduction to Philosoph}^, pp. 32-58. 

Bain, Mental Science, pp. 198, 202-214. 

Titchener, Textbook of Psychology, pp. 9-13. 

Snider, Psychology and the Psychosis, pp. 62-70. 

Krauth-Fleming, Vocabulary of Philosophy, under "Matter". 

Baldwin, Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology, under "Matter". 

Fullerton, The World We Live in, ad lib. 

Davis, Elementary Psychology, pp. 96-104. 

29. Perception a constructive process. A perception is not a 
mere aggregation of sensations; it is an elaborative building process. 
Perception is active; in it the mind realizes itself in conscious activity. 
In perception it centers itself attentively in a chosen mode of action and 
acquiring experience materials and initiating constructive growth. Thus 
seeing is not a mere mechanical photographing of physical phenomena; 
it is an active associative appropriation of life substances. 



A Syllabus of Psychology 57 

In insisting on the active character of perception it is not impUed 
by contrast that sensations are mere passive ''states" of consciousness. 
Sensations also are active. All aspects of mind are active; and there is 
evidently a possibility of error in Ladd's statement that, "We have 
sensations; but we perceive objects". It should not be forgotten that 
perception and sensation are but the objective and the subjective aspects 
of presentative knowing, and are essentially active processes. 

In direct opposition to this view of the active character of perception 
see Davis's discussion on pages 94 and 95 of his Elements of Psychology. 
He concludes with these words: ''Perception, then, relatively to its ob- 
jects, is an affection, not an action; a capacity, not a faculty. In it, the 
mind receives impressions without being able to reject or to modify them; 
it does not act, but is acted on; it does not affect, but is affected. In 
perception my state is merely receptive; I am strictly passive". 

Questions and Exercises 

Try again seeing a chair as in the last list of exercises, noting how you actively 
grasp form, color, etc. 

Criticize Davis's view as given on pages 94 and 95 of his "Elements of Psychology." 

Give an illustration of a perception, and distinguish its constituent sensation ele- 
ments. 

Show by example that "What thing is perceived will depend upon past exper- 
ience". 

References 

Stout, Analytical Psychologv, Vol. II, pp. 65-72. 

Stout, Manual of Psychology, pp. 246, 255, 263-268. 

Salisbury, Theory of Teaching, pp. 86-92. 

Dewey, Psychology, pp. 157-158. 

Angell, Psychology, pp. 138-140. 

Morgan, Psychology for Teachers, pp. 93-94, 113-114. 

Snider, Psychology and the Psychosis, Intellect, pp. 118-160. 

Mitchell, Structure and Growth of the Mind, pp. 281 et seq. 

James, Principles of Psychology, Vol. II, pp. 1-2, 76-82. 

Rogers, Modern Philosophy, pp. 242-248. 

Putnam, Textbook of Psychology, pp. 60-62. 

Halleck, Psychology and Psychic Culture, pp. 66-84. 

Munsterberg, Psychology, General and Applied, pp. 145-147. 

Dunlap, System of Psychology, p. 197 et seq. 

30. Illusory perception. While we readily accept the opinion that 
our senses may in general be depended upon to give us a true report of 
phenomena of the outer world as they affect our nervous substance, we 
no less readily admit that we often err in perceiving that which does not 
exist in such phenomena. A sensation state is often the source of illusion 
in perception. These illusions are of many kinds and are traceable to a 
great variety of physical, physiological, and psychical facts, as when one 
sees a straight stick partially submerged in a bowl or water as a bent 
stick, or hears a tone in the "after sensation" when the "physical sound" 
has ceased, or sees a ghost in a white stump after listening to "ghost 
stories". Without concerning himself with the philosophical question of 
the "reality of the outer world as separate from the percipient mind^, 
the student may accept the view that these "false perceptions" are as 
facts of psychic experience true perceptions. Gurney's emphatic state- 



58 A Syllabus of Psychology 

ment that, ''Every psychological phenomenon that takes the character 
of a sense-impression is a sense-impression" is scientifically exact, that is, 
what one '' sees " he sees in the meaning of psychology, not merely "imag- 
ines that he sees". Perceiving is but interpreting sensation states, and 
it is not essential to the validity of the process that the source of these 
states should conform to certain common conventional modes of contact 
of the body mechanism with its material environment. 

The various forms of ''illusory perception" are an interesting field 
of study, for example, the student may introspectively watch his atti- 
tude toward his perception in the Aristotle experiment of rolling a small 
marble between the crossed ends of his first and second fingers. I have 
myself for years enjoyed questioning my friends about perceiving a green 
sunset sky as "blue" because the sky is conventionally known to be blue. 

Questions and Exercises 

What is the significance of the words "present attitude" in the statement that 
"In perception the sensation is given meaning through interpretation and present 
attitude"? 

When in a railway car standing still you look at a moving train on a nearby track 
and are deceived in thinking that your own car is moving, can you "feel your car 
move"? 

Distinguish an illusion from a hallucination with examples. 

What is the meaning of the statement that "perception is sensation plus thought "? 

What is "seeing a ghost"? 

References 

Parish, Hallucinations and Illusions, ad lib. 
James, Principles of Psychology, Vol. II, pp. 85-106, 243-268. 
James, Briefer Course in Psychology, pp. 317-325. 
Sully, Human Mind, Vol. II, p. 312. 

Ladd, Psychology, Descriptive and Explanatory, pp. 370-375. 
Witmer, Analytical Psychology, Index "Illusions". 
Sanford, Experimental Psychology, Index "Illusions". 
Myers, Textbook of Experimental Psychology, Index "Illusions". 
Murray, Introduction to Psychology, pp. 295-300. 
Titchener, Primer of Psychology, pp. 115-117. 
Baldwin. Elements of Psychology, pp. 192-201. 
Angell, Psychology, pp. 132-135. 
Stout, Manual of Psychology, pp. 413-417. 

Baldwin, Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology, articles "Illusion" and "Hal- 
lucination". 

Seashore, Elementary Experiments in Psychology, pp. 170-190. 
Major, Elements of Psychology, pp. 125-135. 
Dunlap, System of Psychology, pp. 201-211. 
Pillsbury, Essentials of Psychology, pp. 180-185. 
Calkins, First Book in Psychology, Index. 



Representative Knowing 

31. Distinguished from presentative knowing. Knowledge 
as the cognitive aspect of consciousness presents in respect to 'Hime" 
three phases: (1) of the accepted present, (2) of the recalled past, and (3) 
of the anticipated future. We ^'know" with equal validity as facts of 
personal life what is "here and now", what "has been", and what "may 



A Syllabus of Psychology 59 

be", that is, the cognitive phase of an experience may be predominantly 
perceptive, reperceptive, or preperceptive. In representative knowing 
the life event is given in consciousness as having been experienced before. 
There is a sense of familiarity or acquaintance with the psychic fact or 
event which refers it to a prior experience. The recognitive idea is no 
less an experience of ^Hhe immediate present" than an idea in direct 
apprehension in which the familiarity sense is wholly lacking. Con- 
sciousness is always of what is ''present", but in representative knowing 
the experience content is placed in a "past" of the life structure. The 
'been-here-before' feeling is the distinctive mark in all representative 
knowing. 

The chief difficulty in understanding the nature of representative 
knowing is due to a naive conception of the objective character of time. 
Time is not a ''thing" in which events are located at intervals with longer 
or shorter stretches of vacancy between them. Time is but a general 
view of events, a constructed system of relations in a changing life current. 
Past, present, and future are but attitudes of personality toward its own 
events. What we accept is "present"; what we turn from is "past"; 
what we look toward is "future". 

Questions and Exercises 

What is it to revive in consciousness the form of a ''past experience"? 

Can you convince yourself, when you are looking directly at a chair before you, 
that your memory image of a chair in another room is as real to your conscious life as 
your perceptive image of the present chair? 

Can you conceive of a personal life without memory? 

What is ' ' yesterday " ? 

Can you "remember" the door of a house which you never saw but which you 
imaged vividly as you read about it in a novel? 

References 

Baldwin, Handbook of Psychology, Vol. I, pp. 80-81, 145-151. 

Baldwin, Elements of Psychology, pp. 128-133. 

James, Principles of Psychology, Vol. I, pp. 643-652. 

James, Briefer Course in Psychology, pp. 280-286. 

Shoup, Mechanism and Personality, pp. 116-119. 

Bowen, Hamilton's Metaphysics, pp. 409-411. 

Dewey, Psychology, pp. 176-180, 188-191. 

Snider, Psychology and the Psychosis, pp. 222-228. 

Angell, Psychology, pp. 161-162, 184-185. 

Davis, Elements of Psychology, p. 187. 

Munsterberg, Psychology, General and Applied, pp. 301-302. 

Robertson, Elements of Psychology, pp. 135-136. 

Dunlap, System of Psychology, pp. 238-241. 

Yerkes, Introduction to Psychology, pp. 192-193. 

32. What a memory is. A memory is a cognitive experience in 
which there is a dominant consciousness of a recreated content. A mem- 
ory is an event in the life, as real and vital as any event due to a primary 
reaction to a situation in which the recognitive element is not consciously 
present. What is known in a memory experience is actually present in 
consciousness as a new vital movement, not the lifeless bod}^ of a vanished 
movement. As a mental fact it belongs wholly to the ''present" of the 



60 A Syllabus of Psychology 

life, though it images with more or less fidelity a past experience. Viewed 
as a bit of personal life, a memory is a resuscitation of a phase or form 
of the life structure that has temporarily ceased to be. It is "the psychi- 
cal aspect of the preservation of form in living substance " . To remember 
is to live again, though the resurrected life is never identical with the 
former life ; it is always a life of the here-and-now with its own increment 
of added material. 

In common speech the term "memory" has three rather loosely 
distinguished meanings; it means the general capacity for keeping some- 
where and somehow out of consciousness the results of experiences; it 
means the recurring in consciousness of ideas that have before been facts 
of personal life; or it means the static results of former experiences some- 
how kept and somehow brought back as unaltered objects of cognition. 
The first and third of these uses have no justification in the science of 
Psychology. A mind is not a granary in which harvested ideas may be 
stored; it is a spontaneously active existence, without objective content 
of "things" of any kind. It is possible to state the second meaning so 
as to give it scientific validity. A memory is a conscious life process 
recurring as a vital fact of the structure of the personal self. 

Memory is the connective tissue of character, the essential bond of 
the inner structure of a personal life. It is the memory image that pre- 
sents in the imagination what has happened to me^ and thus makes possi- 
ble the progressive building of a life. Ladd says, "Without memory, 
knowledge of the past would be a meaningless phrase ; without knowledge 
of the past, through memory, present knowledge both of things and 
seK would be impossible; and growth of knowledge for the individual 
or the race could not take place". The art of memory is but the art of 
constructive thinking, in which all selfhood consists. 

Questions and Exercises 

What is a "good memory"; and what does a person commonly mean when he 
says "I have a poor memory"? 

Explain the statement, "Without the ability to reproduce a past experience there 
would be no mental life". 

At the close of an ordinary day of your life recall as distinctly as possible all of 
the separate events of speaking to people, noting the varying degrees of satisfaction 
in the process. Can you recall the first word spoken by the other person in a majority 
of the conversations? ' 

Distinguish critically the terms "remembrance", "reminiscence" and "recol- 
lection". 

Why should a memory improve with age; or why decline? 

References 

Krauth-Fleming, Handbook of the Philosophical Sciences, "Memory". 

Baldwin, Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology, "Memory". 

Murray, Introduction to Psychology, pp. 353-354. 

Judd, Psychology, pp. 236-237. 

Scripture, Thinking, Feehng, Doing, p. 239. 

Calkins, First Book in Psychology, pp. 115-123. 

Kay, Memory, etc., pp. 1-46. i 

Wenzlaff, The Mental Man. pp. 184-185. 

Dorpfield, Thought and Memory, pp. 24-27, 36-38. 

Pills})ury^ Essentials of Psychology, p. 188 et seq. 



A Syllabus of Psychology 61 

Major, Elements of Psychology, pp. 198-201. 
Dunlap, System of Psychology, pp. 174-179. 
Phjllips, Elementary Psychology, pp. 180-186. 

33. Four elements of a memory. In a memory experience four 
components may be distinguished: (1) preservation of constituents of 
former experiencing, (2) revival of a past experience structure, (3) recog- 
nition of the revived experience as such, and (4) referring the revived 
experience to a past time. It is essential to a memory that there should 
be "retaining", "recalling", "recognizing", and "localizing in time". 
These coexist in a memory process as simultaneous aspects. 

34. Retaining the past experiences. By "retention of a past 
experience" we do not mean a process, but merely a possibility of a 
process — in fact, "retention" is not a factor of the memory experience, 
but merely a condition of it. James says, "Retention means liability 
to recall, and it means nothing more than such liability. The only proof 
of there being retention is that recall actually takes place. The retention 
of an experience is, in short, but another name for the possibility of 
thinking it again, or the tendency to think it again, with its past sur- 
roundings". As a fact of mental life, retention is the permanent possi- 
bility of reviving a state that is vanishing or that has vanished from con- 
sciousness. It is analogous to the "latent force" of the physicist; and it 
is, at most, but an abiding condition of all memory events. 

The term memory is frequently erroneously used to designate this 
possibility of keeping, or the actual keeping, of a past event. Even 
among psychologists the meaning of the term alternates between the 
preserving and the reproducing of the mental states. A memory is, 
however, an experience, and the possibility of such a bit of life is no more 
a part of the experience than the materials used by the carpenter are a 
part of the process of building the house. The memory is the actual 
coming-to-be in consciousness of what is greeted as having been before 
in a more or less definite past. 

The various theories of retention take three principal forms: first, 
it is thought that each experience "stamps its image" on the brain tissue, 
that every mental event so alters the body structure as to establish a 
material basis for its recurrence; second, "the mind is thought of as a 
sort of storehouse, or case of pigeon-holes, in which images of past ex- 
periences are stored away, like the negatives in a photographer's back- 
room, to be pulled out as occasion requires ";. third, the life activity per- 
sists in "the ceaseless flow of the subconscious current", to rise into 
consciousness as germinant centers of definite experiences. The truth 
would doubtless be expressed by a proper statement of the first and 
third theories combined; the second may be rejected as wholly irrational. 
A life is a growing structure of experiences that involve mind and body 
in an inseparable unity; and the present, conscious and unconscious, 
contains the whole of the accumulated structure. The absurdity of the 
second theory is apparent when we consider that there is nothing to keep 
as a static thing and no place to keep any such dead form of existence. 



62 A Syllabus of Psychology 

Ouestious and Exercises 

Criticize Major's statement, on page 204 of his "Elements of Paychology", that 
"It is not the mind, but the nervous system that retains impressions." 

Compare your feeUng of pleasant surprise in unexpectedly remembering an in- 
cident in your past life with the similar feeling when you happen upon some long for- 
gotten memento of the past. 

Does mere repetition serve to "fix in memory"? 

Explain the statement that "retention is merely the permanent possibility of 
reviving an experience ". 

"Can the memory be trained"? 

References 

James, Principles of Psychology, Vol. I, pp. 654-676. 

Dewey, Psychology, pp. 178-180. 

Baldwin, Handbook of Psychology, Vol. I, pp. 152-164. 

Wundt, Outlines of Psychology, p. 170. 

Sully, Human Mind, Vol. I, pp. 186-187. 

Ladd, Outlines of Descriptive Psychology, pp. 419-424. 

Angell, Psychology, pp. 188-194. 

Stout, Analytical Psychology, Vol. I, pp. 254-263. 

Stout, Manual of Psychology, pp. 76, 435. 

Wenzlaff, The Mental Man, pp. 184-187. 

Davis, Elements of Psychology, pp. 189-190. 

Brooks, Mental Science, pp. 129-131. 

Titchener, Textbook of Psychology, p. 396 et seq. 

Major, Elements of Psychology, p. 203. 

Dunlap, System of Psychology, pp. 169-174. 

35. Reviving a past experience. The fundamental characteristic 
of a memory is the reviving of a life event, the reproducing in conscious- 
ness of prior states of ideas and feelings. The past experience is resur- 
rected from its grave in the brain cells, or raised from a submerged state 
below the threshold of consciousness, or reenacted in similar form in the 
habitual flow of mental elements. The revived or resuscitated event is 
not a mere echo of the original bit of life; it is a new experience, recognized 
in the structural form of the vanished experience. The memory is ac- 
cepted in the consciousness as a re-presentation, though it has never been 
in the life current before in exactly its present form. It incorporates 
elements of knowing and feeling from the past life, so organizing them 
that the structure has the familiar, been-here-before appearance. It is 
not its brought-back component elements that makes it a memory, but 
the familiar form. All conscious processes of life are cumulative, and 
each new process involves those preceding it; but it is only when the 
process presents the having-been-before aspect that it is called a memory. 

The reappearance of an idea in consciousness reveals a continuity of 
mental structure which psychologists have sought to explain by the 
''laws of the association of ideas". The presence of one idea in con- 
sciousness is thought to give rise to another through some form of "asso- 
ciation" with it, thus the idea that my room is cold brings into con- 
sciousness the idea of putting coal in the furnace, through the preVious 
association of these ideas. Critical discrimination of the relations by 



A Syllabus of Psychology 63 

which ideas suggest other ideas have led to the formulation of ''laws of 
association", of which the following are most common: — 

(1) Law of Similarity: ''Similar concepts reproduce one another". 

(2) Law of Contiguity: "Concepts that have been together tend to 

reappear together. " 

(3) Law of Cause and Effect: "Concepts related as cause and. effect 

tend to recall each other. " 

Probably no subject of psychology has been discussed with more 
earnestness and with less scientific clearness than this question of the 
relation of mental states in the stream of conscious events. The number 
and the formulation of these so-called laws have varied through more than 
two thousand years. Aristotle gave formal statement to the laws of 
"resemblance", "contrast", and "contiguity"; and a long list of great 
thinkers have expended time and effort on the subject. Later writers 
have sought to reduce all laws to the single law of contiguity, thus Ladd 
says, "All merely mechanical reproduction falls under the principle of 
contiguity". St. Augustine's law of "redintegration" is probably the 
most notable effort in this direction: "Objects that have been previously 
united as parts of a single mental state, tend to recall or suggest one 
another". Baldwin makes a very clear statement of this truth in his 
"law of correlation " : "Every association of mental states is an integration 
due to the previous correlation of these states in apperception". 

A fundamental error is revealed in much of the discussion of the 
"laws of the association of ideas". There is evident an attempt to dis- 
cover a Hnkage between two ideas as objective static existences, that is 
ideas are believed to cohere in some mechanical manner as burs stick 
together. The whole question, however, relates to the flow of thought as 
the mental life progressively reconstructs itself about changing image 
centers. The relation between two mental events is not an external one, 
but an internal dynamic one. A memory is a bit of present life, full of 
meaning in itself; and its recognitive aspect does not demand any asso- 
ciation of discrete idea forms. 

Memory processes are distinguished as "voluntary" and "invol- 
untary", according to the presence or absence of a sense of effort in the 
reviving of the states of consciousness. In voluntary memory, called 
"recollection" in contradistinction to mere "remembrance" as involun- 
tary memory, there is intensified consciousness of a lack of something 
in the present experience, which is sought with more or less persistence in 
the "structure of the past". The effort to recall has its origin in an in- 
tentional completing of an experience state. It is impossible to seek 
what is wholly absent from consciousness. St. Augustine ssljs, "We 
still hold of it, as it were, a part, and by this part which we hold we seek 
that which we do not hold". In involuntary memory one idea succeeds 
another without conscious effort, the incoming idea is often accepted with 
surprise, though, we, in general, feel that it must be in some way due to 
a "suggestion" in the preceding idea. Reverie, as a loose, effortless 
chain of memory images, is an extreme case of involuntary memory. 

"Forgetting" is temporary inability to recall a past experience. It 



64 A Syllabus of Psychology 

is not a process, but is merely the negative of the remembering process. 
It is failure to reproduce a previous experience when voluntarily sought. 
For an experience not to reappear in consciousness spontaneously is not 
to forget it; forgetting is antithetic to voluntary memory only. Also 
to forget does not mean to lose beyond the power to recall; it does not 
mean that what has been a part of a life may be annihilated, but only 
that it is so displaced from consciousness as not to be found when wanted. 
While an event may never recur in the life (untold thousands never do) , 
there is always the possibility that it may. 

Questions and Exercises 

What is the distinction between "active" and "passive" recall? 

Give examples of assimilation of ideas in your own conscious life. 

Show that St. Augustine's law "of redintigration " includes all of the "laws of 
association". 

Do ideas as such really cohere in the mental mass; or is each conscious bit of 
life made out of a sort of mental protoplasm? 

How do you recall a name that appears to . evade you in your search for it? 

Explain Pillsbury's statement, on page 199 of his "Essentials of Psychology", 
that "Forgetting is almost as important as remembering in the adequate use of past 
experiences. " 

References 

James, Principles of Psychology, Vol. I, pp. 550-604, 679-681. 

James, Briefer Course in Psychology, pp. 289-292. 

Stout, Manual of Psychology, pp. 418-434. 

Dewey, Psychology, pp. 90-117. 

Baldwin, Handbook of Psychology, Vol. I, pp. 191-203. 

Baldwin, Elements of Psychology, pp. 161-174. 

Ladd, Psychology Descriptive and Explanatory, pp. 263-286 

Sully, Human Mind, Vol. I, pp. 294-360, Vol. II, Appendix, pp. 339-342. 

Kay, Memory, etc., pp. 271-288, 235-239. 

Dorpffeld, Thought and Memory, pp. .39-53. 

Bowen, Hamilton's Metaphysics, pp. 421-442. 

Spencer, Principles of Psychology, Vol. I, pp. 267-271. 

Bain, Mental Science, pp. 85-127, Appendix, pp. 91-92. 

Major, Elements of Psychology, pp. 204-216. 

Pillsbury, Essentials of Psychology, pp. 135-145, 199-202. 

Dunlap, System of Psychology, pp. 177-195. 

36. Recognizing a revived experience. Recognition is the third 
of the four components which our analysis of a memory experience has 
revealed. An experience is (1) retained, (2) produced, and (3) recog- 
nized, that is '^ known as having been known before". In a memory I 
am not only conscious of an experience as something that has been pre- 
served and recalled, but also it now appears as my experience returned. 
It is in identifying a present experience with an experience of my past life 
that it becomes a memory, hence, in a memory there is a consciousness 
of a self to which the memory belongs. The recognition element of a 
memory demands an awareness of a unified personality of which the 
memory experience is but a form of present realization. The retrospec- 
tive glance of memory is incident to comprehension of selfhood ; it is of the 
same nature as prospecting the future, and both serve to give fuller mean- 
ing to the present. ''Every act of memory with recognition transcends 
the present, and connects the present into a known real unity with the 
past". 



A Syllabus of Psychology 65 

Since the memory idea is not an object floated upon the stream of 
conscious Hfe as something distinct from the substance of the stream 
itself, but is an aspect of the moving current, an eddy in its progressive 
reahzation, all figurative explanations of recognition, ''acquaintance", 
''familiarity", etc., must be received critically. The ps3Thologist finds 
clear thinking in his field hampered at every turn b}^ lack of technical 
terminology^, untainted by prejudiced use in the material sciences. Psy- 
chology has little scientific language of its own, but masquerades in the 
verbal forms of extrospective objective science. A memory image is a 
process, not a product, and recognition is not of something that has been 
but no longer is, it is but a phase of present life processes. All life is 
present life, whether accepted as a "now", projected into "the past", 
or prospected in "the future". 

Questions and Exercises 

Explain the terms ''recalling without recognizing" and ''recognizing without 
recalling". 

Note critically in your own. experience, as it occurs naturally, the sense of famil- 
iarity when in absolutely new surroundings. Does this " been-here-bef ore " feeling 
grow stronger or weaker as you introspectively examine it and condemn it as untrue 
to the facts? 

Why do truthful persons often "remember" details of events that "never hap- 
pened", as when an old soldier talks of his army experiences? 

Are we justified in calling recognition the "central fact of memory"; and is recog- 
nition essentialh' "awareness of self" as the substance of mental life? 

References 

Baldwin, Handbook of Psychology, Vol. I, pp. 172-179. 

Baldwin, Elements of Psvchologv, pp. 149-152. 

Wenzlaff, The Mental Man, pp." 195-197. 

Ladd, Psychology. Descriptive and Explanatory, pp. 377-378, 381-382, 397-402. 

Calkins, First Book in Psychology, pp. 124-132. 

Brooks, Mental Science, pp. 136-139. 

James, Principles of Psychology, Vol. I, pp. 673, 676. 

James, Briefer Course in Psychology, p. 299. 

Dewey, Psychology, p. 190. 

Angell, Psychology, pp. 187-192. 

Pillsbury, Essentials of Psvchology, pp. 207-211. 

Calkins, First Book in Psychology, pp. 124-132. 

37. Localizing a memory in time. The most peculiar aspect 
of a memory experience is its pastness. A memory is a bit of conscious 
life which in some strange way is objectified and thrust out into a "past 
time". It is a revival of cognitive activity", accepted as familiar, and 
projected into a "time" construct. We are not only conscious of the 
state as having been, but there is a more or less sense of when it has been. 
In our attitude toward it as a bit of life's substance we turn our back on 
it, denying to it either the acceptance of the "present" or the anticipa- 
tion of the "future"; it simply has been "back there somewhere". 

Much of the difficulty in understanding this localizing of a memory 
event in a past time is due to lack of clearness as to the nature of time. 
Time is not an objective "thing", as a roadway along which events pro- 
ceed in a more or less uniformly-spaced order, as a procession in which 
there are gaps of vacanc}^, or "empty time". Such a view is philosophi- 
cally absurd. Herbert Spencer has well said, "Time is the abstract 



66 A Syllabus of Psychology 

(general view) of all relations of sequence"; and consciousness of ''empty 
time" is impossible. Time is but a way of looking at life events, in their 
sequence of content and form. ''Each individual constructs his own 
time-order from the standpoint of the 'specious' or felt present by means 
of images in which the past and future, not actually present, are repre- 
sented". My "past" and "future" are my constructs of experience 
changes; and when I think an event as past, I merely place it in a cate- 
gory of those events from which I have turned. Fastness, presentness 
or futureness are not qualities of the events as such, but consist solely 
in the will attitudes of the person toward his experiences; what we turn 
from as gone is "past", what we act toward as here is "present", and 
what we anticipate as coming is "future". 

The dating of an event in the past, i. e., giving it a fixed place in the 
time construct, depends upon its relations to other events in conscious- 
ness. There are two forms of projecting an event into past time, in the 
one we merely say "it has been"; in the other, "it was at a relatively 
determined point". All memory events have the 'has-been' character- 
istic; but in some there is a more or less definite determining of 'when 
it has been', while in many the reference to the past is satisfied by mere 
acknowledgement of the pastness. There are also apparently two forms 
of determining the date of a past event; first, placing it among a somewhat 
vaguely located group of events as 'belonging to their time' ; and second, 
estimating in objective artificial time units 'how long since' it has been. 
But even in this how-long-since the place of the event is fixed in the time 
schedule by its relations to other contiguous events. It is impossible to 
measure back to an event from the present along a vacant stretch of 
time, that is, in locating a point in past time there is always more involved 
than a present point and a time measuring-rod. Whereness in time — 
past, present, or future — is a matter of the whole form of the experience 
content. -To know that an event is a past event or to determine when 
it was in the past demands a comprehensive view of the content and 
form of the experiential life as a whole, and it cannot be narrowed to a 
mere mechanical matter of objective time units and records. 

The part that rhythm plays in determining the place of an experience 
in the progressive life movement is an interesting study, but I doubt 
that it fully explains the determining of the "length of time" between 
two time stations, as some writers seem to think it does. Try, with a 
stop watch, the experiment of closing your eyes for one minute, noting 
in critical introspection your attitude toward the process. How do you 
determine how long to keep your eyes shut? 

Questions and Exercises 

Watch yourself in natural memory events to discover whether you are ordinarily 
satisfied with a vague feeling of has-been-before, or whether you persistently endeavor 
to determine when-it-was in your own constructed past. 

Is the dating of events in one's own life calendar essential to effective living? 

Compare anticipatory localizing in the future with reminiscent localizing in the 
past. 



A Syllabus of Psychology 67 

Note the certainty with which particular past events are referred to certain focal 
events that serve as "bench marks" in the hfe survey; and endeavor to determine 
introspectively how you locahze the focal events themselves. 

Do you feel any surer of the reality of a "past event" in your life movement than 
you do of a "future event"? Why? 

References 

James, Principles of Psychology, Vol. I. pp. 605-642. 

James, Briefer Course in Psychology, pp. 280-286. 

Baldwin, Handbook of Psychology, Vol. I, pp. 179-188. 

Baldwin, Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology, article "Time". 

Encyclopaedia Britannica, Ward's article on "Psvchology". 

Stout, Manual of Psychology, pp. 384-391, 496-500. 

Dewey, Psychology, pp. 183-191. 

Spencer, Principles of Psychology, Vol. II, pp. 207-215. 

Sully, Human Mind, Vol. I, pp. 318-329; Vol. II, pp. 343-345: 

Ladd, Outlines of Descriptive Psychology, pp. 299-302. 

Ladd, Psvchology Descriptive and Explanatory, pp. 495-499. 

Spiller, Mind of Man, p. 384. 

Munsterberg, Psychology and Life, p. 14. 

Hoffding, Outlines of Psychology, pp. 184-190. 



Elaborative Knowing 

38. Nature of elaboration. The third form of cognition is the 
elaboration of the knowledge structure out of germinant sense-percep- 
tions and accumulated knowledge content. In its growth the mind 
acquires knowledge materials in presentation, maintains its continuity 
and integrity in representation, and gives form to its structure in elabora- 
tion. Elaboration is the organizing of the cognitive life in constructive 
growth. In the analytic structure of the process numerous forms are 
distinguished, of which the following are most important: Apperception, 
Conception, Imagination, Judgment, and Reasoning. 

39. Apperception is mental assimilation. It is a natural biological 
process of transforming mental food into mental tissue; it builds the raw 
majterials of sensation into unified knowledge structure. The mind 
as a growing organism constantly reconstructs itself in the acquisition 
of new substance. This apperceptive process of relating new percepts 
to previously formed knowledge structure is cooperative between the old 
and the new; the new is not only assimilated ("made like" the old), 
but the old is reconstructed (''formed again") to take in the new. Ap- 
perception is the process of integrating ("wholing") the new increment 
into the coherent whole of a personal life. In this process the present 
sense-percept becomes the germinant center of a more or less completely 
unified experience; and the life as a whole is formed progressively by this 
assimilative reconstruction of its substance in successive experiences. 

Apperception is the synthesizing activity which gives significance 
and value to mental data. Apperception interprets the present in the 
light of the past ; and it is only in this interpreting that sensory elements 



68 A Syllabus of Psychology 

acquired in perception have any "meaning". "Meaning is past exper- 
ience which a mind reads into present experience ". It is in apperception 
that the mind values and utihzes present possessions by relating them 
to its whole experience structure previously acquired and organized. 

Apperception is not supplemental to perception in the sense that it 
is added to it as a discrete extension or continuation; it is unavoidably a 
part of all perception. As the mind grasps the phenomenal world in 
perception, it simultaneously values it in terms of what it already has, or 
is. Perception is never without this assimilative interpretation, which 
is inceptive of the organizing process of forming coherent knowledge units. 
Some psychologists use the term "perception" to designate the whole of 
the active assimilation of new sense-impressions by the structure origina- 
ting in previous experience; but in the interest of explanatory science 
there is some advantage in distinguishing the organizing phase of the 
process from the acquisitive phase, even though they are not separable. 

In the Herbartian Psychology the existing mental systems by which 
the new perceptions are welcomed and assimilated are called "apper- 
ception masses, or "apperception bases". The "apperception mass" 
is life already attained focalized in a concept or notion, and used as a 
means of acquiring additional life. To the Herbartian psj^chologists 
apperception is "the reaction of the old against the new^', as when a 
person familiar with oranges but who has never seen a grape fruit, ex- 
claims on seeing a grape fruit for the first time, "What a big orange!" 
They regard the "apperception masses" as active entities seizing what- 
ever they desire for their own enlargement. One of them says, "the 
apperceiving conceptions usually stand like armed soldiers within the 
strongholds of consciousness, ready to pounce upon everything which 
shows itself within the portals of the senses, in order to overcome it and 
make it serviceable to themselves". 

Clearness in description and explanation of mental growth requires 
that apperception should be distinguished from conception. Since per- 
ception is the acquisitive phase and apperception is the organizing phase 
of the growing process, it might appear that there would be no use for the 
term "conception"; but conception is as clearly distinguishable from 
apperception as apperception is from perception. Conception (as will 
be seen in the next section) is the forming of mental units. It creates 
notions as the discrete facts of rational life. It is teleological, while 
apperception is mere procedure as such. Conception is concerned pri- 
marily with what is achieved in life structure, while apperception relates 
to how it is achieved. 

Questions and Exercises 

Why is it natural for a little child to call every man ''papa"? 

Why do old people remember with peculiar vividness events of their childhood, 
while they often forget more significant events of middle life? 

Is the Herbartian theory of "apperceptive masses" satisfactory? 

Do the observed facts justify the statement that "one does not have a new idea 
after he is forty years old"? 

Discuss the statement that "Apperception is the interpretation of new experiences 
in the light of those past experiences which have been assimilated", showing that the 
term "experiences" is not used with precision. 



A Syllabus of Psychology 69 

As you listen to a thought-provoking lecture, note introspectively how you ''add 
new ideas to your knowledge structure". 

References 

Stout, Analytical Psychology, Vol. II, p. 110 et seq. 

Dewey, Psychology, pp. 84-90. 

Lindner, Empirical Psychology, pp. 123-130. 

Lange, Apperception, DeGarmo's translation. 

Baldwin, Handbook of Psychology, Vol. I, Index. 

Baldwin, Dictionary of Psychology and Philosophy. 

iMunsterberg. Psychology and Life, pp. 88-92. 

^lunsterberg, Psychologj^ and the Teacher, pp. 128-133. 

Pillsbury, Attention, p. 214 et seq. " 

Snider, Psychology and the Psychosis, p. 161 et seq. * 

Gordy, New Psychology, pp. 346-353. 

PhiUips, Elementary Psychology, pp. 78-93. 

40. Conception is forming notions, or ^'ideas''. It is elaborating 
universals out of particulars acquired in perception, thus simplifying life 
by unifying in comprehensive notions the elements grasped in sense- 
perception. It is not, however, a mere ''grasping together", as the 
etymology {con-cap lo) would imply, but a true creative process of making 
meaningful units in the knowledge structure. These mental units, 
called ''concepts", are not percepts, either "simple" or "complex" — not 
single apprehensions of concrete objects nor combinations of such per- 
ceptive apprehensions; they are veritable creations in which the individ- 
ual elements have lost their identity. Thus, in the concept dog, when 
we say "a dog is on the doorstep", the quality of four-footedness is not 
in consciousness. 

Conception creates the universal. A concept is always a " universal " 
whether it is the notion of an individual thing or of a class of things. 
There are in fact, two classes of concepts, both alike universal: class 
concepts, originating in a synthesis of the common features of the individ- 
ual things of a species or class; individual concepts, originating in a like 
synthesis of the important features of an individual' thing. A concept 
is always an ideal construction; and an individual concept is no less 
a collective universal than a "general concept" of a class. Thus, the 
notion of the individual Roosevelt is an abstract universal in exactly the 
same sense as the notion of the class man, — that is, the "individual con- 
cept" which we denominate by a proper noun is no more a group of 
separate characteristics loosely combined than the "general concept" 
which we embody in a common noun is a congeries of perceptions of 
human qualities; and the one can no more be imaged than the other. 
A concept is abstract and universal and cannot in an}^ case be imaged. 
Conception is cognition of the universal, as distinguished from perception 
of the particular. While we refer perceptions to definite objects which 
we image, we do not so refer concepts. 

Conception gives meaning to the life elements. The acquisitions of 
perception would be as valueless as the miser's gold, if conception did 



70 A Syllabus of Psychology 

not build them into significant structures. All of our valuable knowl- 
edge, that is, all knowledge that has meaning for us, exists in concepts; 
in fact, our intellectual lives are but systems of rationally related con- 
cepts. 

Conception is initiated in the formation of the '' generic image" by 
uniting in an associative way a number of concrete images of particular 
objects. Into this generic image, as a framework, are progressively built 
selected materials. Conception creates the ideational units of life by 
ceaseless constructive organization of materials selectively appropriated 
by differentiated knowledge systems. The "general concept" is thus 
not a static entity at any stage of its existence, but is a continuous growth, 
originating in the generic image as a germinant center and continuing 
by perceptive acquisition and intellective organization. Four part 
processes are commonly distinguished in conception: (.1) comparison, 
(2) abstraction, (3) generalization, and (4) denomination — that is, we 
note likeness and unlikeness in the phenomena perceived, abstract like 
qualities for consideration, generalize these qualities into a class, and 
give the class definite existence in a name. A concept is never '^completed", 
even when named; it is not a static result; it is perpetually a dynamic 
process of the growing mind. It is the concept units, or "mental systems " 
previously elaborated out of perception materials, that serve as "apper- 
ception masses" in distributing new acquisitions in the whole mental 
structure. Concepts thus not onty conserve the experiences of the past 
and unify the present, but they also anticipate a future of new experiences. 

Conception is the initial process of all thinking, considered as the 
organizing aspect of mental growth complemental to the acquisitive 
aspect of sense-perception. In thinking the mental substance accumulated 
in sensing the material environment is built into structural unity; and 
the higher forms of judging and reasoning not only begin in conception 
but are themselves but more elaborate forms of the same process. 

It is important to distinguish the use of the term "concept" in Logic 
from its use in Psychology. In Logic it means more the static result of 
mental activity than the activity itself; it is viewed from the side of its 
verbal embodiment and is dealt with as a "term" with a fixed meaning. 
In Psychology it is a process, a constantly changing mental procedure 
which "denomination" does not check. In Logic the sj^mbolic aspect 
of the concept often obliterates the meaning, while in Psychology the 
meaning as a growing process finds but loose embodiment in the sym- 
bolizing term. 

"Can we think without language?" The logician must answer this 
question in the negative; for so far as the formal thinking of Logic is 
concerned, at least of deductive Logic, the term embodiments of the 
concepts are indispensable. The symbolic phase of the concept as "fixed " 
in the verbal sign overshadows its meaning, obscuring it and in the formal 
syllogism even obliterating it. In the more rigorous forms of deductive 



A Syllabus of Psychology 71 

reasoning the ''terms" are in general as abstract as the letter symbols in 
the algebraic equation, and the validity of the reasoning depends essen- 
tially upon the right use of these verbal forms, with but slight reference 
to their content. Even in less systematic thinking the ''word" often 
becomes a meaningless form to juggle with in apparent thought — witness 
the common use of the word "instinct''. But our question is not as 
easy as this. Observation of human life about us reveals thought pro- 
cesses of apparently much cogency in which the conventional forms of 
articulate speech are wholly wanting. A 3"0ung child (especially one 
who is "slow in beginning to talk") will discuss for some minutes a sit- 
uation with his mother without using even one conventional word symbol. 
In this connection the question of the "language of animals is interest- 
ing". For suggestive brief discussions of this whole matter, see Sully's 
Human Mind, Vol. I, p. 419, and Titchener's Textbook of Ps3^chology, p. 
521. 

AVhile the distinction of the "intension" and "extension" of terms 
is more properly a matter for the student of Logic, these two aspects 
of the word-embodied concept are not without interest to the psychologist. 
The "intent of a term" is its qualitative meaning, while its "extent" is 
its quantitative use; the intent of the term man is the qualities which it 
connotes, while its extent is the aggregation of things which it names. 
Psychology is properly concerned with the intent, leaving the extent to 
Philosoph}^ and Logic. 

Questions and Exercises 

Which is larger a cat or a peanut? Note that in first reading such a question as 
this that j^ou make no effort to image either "cat" or "peanut"; also note how quickly 
you pass from the "general notion" to the imaged individual object. Experiment 
repeatedly in this way with a view to discovering the purely abstract nature of the 
general concept. 

Would you call your idea of Socrates a "general concept"? Why? 

Show that growth in knowledge depends upon "concepts"; and explain the state- 
ment that "intellectual development is a process of de-synonimization " . 

Search your conscious life for an "unnamed concept". Why is "denomination" 
essential to concept-forming? 

Have 3^ou a concept of "truth" that you use in identifying particular statements 
^s truths? 

Compare your concept of God with your concept of a penknife, as to clearness, 
origin, development, etc. 

Analyze the term "a little, sour, red apple", showing the modifications made in 
ntent and extent by successively prefixing "red", "sour", "little", and "a". 

References 

Porter, Human Intellect, pp. 388-430. 

Sully, Human Mind, Vol. I, pp. 413, 433. 

Dewey, Psychology, pp. 204-213. 

Angell, Psychology, pp. 203-222. 

Ladd, Psychology, Descriptive and Explanatory, pp. 437-445. 

Baldwin, Elements of Psychology, pp. 206-211.^ 

Baldwin, Handbook of Psychology. Vol. I, pp. 272-283. 

Wentzlaff, The Mental Man, pp. 211-215. 

Davis, Elements of Psychology, pp. 219-224, 227-230. 

Lotze, Outlines of Logic, I., 9-25. 

Brown, System of Psychology, Vol. I, pp. 543-548, Vol. II, pp. 65-83. 

Lewes, Problems of Life and Mind, 3rd Series, Vol. II, pp. 463-467. 

Stout, Manual of Psychology, p. 447 et seq. 

Stout, Groundwork of Psychology, pp. 142, 145. 

Stout, Analytical Psychology, Vol. II, p. 168, et seq. 

Robertson, Elements of Psychology, pp. 165-176. 



72 A Syllabus of Psychology 

Gordy, New Psychology, pp. 273, 304. 

Lindner, Empirical Psychology, pp. 140-145. 

Calkins, First Book in Psychology, pp. 136-143. 

Brooks, Mental Science, pp. 210-227. 

Betts, Mind and its Education, pp. 147-154. 

Snider, Psychology and the Psychosis, Intellect, p. 478 et seq. 

Murray, Introduction to Psychology, pp. 253-255. 

Pillsbury, Essentials of Psychology, pp. 220-228. 

Read, Introductory Psychology, pp. 232-240. 

Pillsbury, Essentials of Psychology, pp. 220-228. 

Dunlap, System of Psychology, pp. 166-168. 

Phillips, Elementary Psychology, pp. 223-224. 

41. Imagination is forming ideal images by combining in new 
forms selected images of past experiences. It gives sensuous form, '^ with- 
out the present help of the senses", to objects never apprehended in 
sense-perception; and thus it creates a new world of concrete facts. The 
"pictures of imagination" are new wholes, not mere aggregations of re- 
perceptive fragments; its objects have the integral unity of the "reals" 
of sense-perception. It presents in consciousness images of possible, 
concrete existences, as distinguished from the actual "things" of the 
world of sense. Imagination never deals with the abstract, as one cannot 
imagine "mercy" or "truthfulness" it never deals with the general, 
as one cannot imagine the meaning of a class noun; it never deals with 
the spiritual, or "immaterial", as one cannot imagine God, except in 
terms of the crudest material anthropomorphic features. Stated afirma- 
tively, imagination deals with concrete, individual, material possibilities. 
It converts actual experience data into ideal presentations. Wundt has 
defined it as "thinking in particular sense ideas", as distinguished from 
thinking in general concepts; and Shakespeare says, "Imagination bodies 
forth the forms of things unknown. " 

Imagination differs from memory in two respects: first, its images 
are ideal constructions, not mere representations as in memory; second, 
while in memory there is always a sense of familiarity — a been-here-be- 
foreness — , in imagination there is a distinct sense of newness or strange- 
ness. The images of imagination are like those of memory in that their 
materials are representations of cognitive elements acquired in sense- 
perception ; but they differ from the memory images in that they are not 
pictures of existing things, but are ideal constructions. In general it 
may be said that memory revives perceptive elements in the combinations 
in which they were experienced, while imagination arranges them in new 
forms It should be noted, however, that no image is ever an exact 
reproduction of a perceptive structure as it originates in the actual sensing 
of a concrete particular object; every memory image, however sure we 
are of its faithfulness to the original, is at best a modified picture. It is 
only in the most general characterization that we may say that, "old 
forms are imaged in memory; new forms, in imagination". Since in its 
use of its reproduced materials imagination ignores the limitations of 
the real data of sense-perception, it has been called "idealized memory". 
Memory brings into consciousness what has been, with a sense of ac- 



A Syllabus of Psychology 73 

quaintanceship; imagination, what may be, without recognition of former 
existence in its perceptive data. Memory has been called '^a witness to 
the past", and imagination, ''a prophet of the future"; but, strictly, 
there is no sense of time in imagination. In perception the mind grasps 
an external world of physical phenomena; in memory it represents its 
acquisitions in consciousness; and in imagination it sets before itself a 
new world of possibilities, which it conceives as actualities. 

Imagination differs from conception in objectifying its creations as 
images; concepts are not so objectively imaged. ''Picturing", the prom- 
inent characteristic of imagination, is wholly absent in conception. Both 
conception and imagination are constructive elaborative processes in 
which cognitive elements are built into mental units of a higher order; 
but in conception the product is an abstract general notion, a ''univer- 
sal" that cannot be pictured as an objective real, while in imagination it 
is a concrete particular image, viewed as a sensory real in an objective 
world of such reals. An imagined tree is individual; the concept tree is 
universal. "Imagination is thinking in particular sense images", as 
distinguished from thinking in universal concepts. 

42. Three phases, or forms, of imagination may be distinguished: 
intensifying, idealizing, and creating. Imagination intensifies a mental 
process originating in sensing the physical environment, as when a mother 
in coddling sympathy increases the pain, both in its cognitive and its 
affective phases, in her child's hand as it bleeds from the scratch of a pin. 
The pain is greater not only because of the focussing of attention upon it, 
but also because it is made greater by imagination. This enlarging of 
experience by imagination is common to both perceptive apprehension 
and representative memory images; in any event of life the mind may 
add by imagination to its importance in the vital structure In the 
second form of imagination, idealizing, the mind builds upon and improves 
its structural units, modifying them in accordance with its own desires 
and purposes Starting with an image of some concrete reality, select- 
ing valued characteristics of it to serve as a framework, ignoring other 
undesirable features and replacing them by desirable ones found in other 
similar images, and rounding out the improved structure into a finished 
whole, the mind constructs an integral ideal image for its own world as 
it would have it be. It is in this way that we create our heroes, and exalt 
our friends. The idealized product is always much more than a mere 
intensified image; it is also more than a mere aggregation of selected 
qualities; it is a birth of the generating mind. In the third form of 
imagination, creating, the mind rises to the highest activity of its willed 
selfhood. Here it forms in and of its own substance images to which 
there are no objective reals of experience, ^y virtue of its free personal 
spontaneity, as a being created in the image of God, it creates a world 
of its own. While these creatures of the imagination find their materials 
in the perceptions of the senses as reproduced in memory images, their 



74 A Syllabus of Psychology 

individualized forms are ideal structures, new existences in the spiritual 
world that are as real creations as when God thought the stars into being. 
The scenes in '^ Alice in Wonderland" or the streets and walls of St. 
John's ''New Jerusalem "are none the less creations because their sensuous 
materials originated in ordinary experience. 

The distinction of the three phases of imagination as intensifying, 
idealizing, and creating does not imply three separate modes of mental 
action; they are but aspects of a single elaborative process, which may be 
viewed as intensifying, idealizing, or creating. The "Heaven" of John's 
Revelation may be viewed as his thought creation, or as his ideahzation 
of a walled city in which the images of beauty are rationally intensified. 

The distinction of imagination experiences as "passive imagination" 
and "active imagination", made by many psychologists, is misleading — 
as, in fact, is the term "passive" everywhere when applied to mental 
processes. It involves the absurdity of a passive activity! It is, however 
profitable to make a distinction between the erratic play of "phantasy" 
and the intelligent work of "imagination proper", provided such classi- 
fying of mental events does not imply, as some writers seem to think, 
"a total absence of will in phantasy". Phantasy, of "fancy", is the 
"spontaneous uncontrolled play of images in consciousness", a passive (?) 
experiencing in which the mind drifts meaninglessly like a mental ka- 
leidoscope. The term "active imagination" is used to denote the more 
rationally purposed building of ideal images. The difference noted here 
is not so much one of varying degrees of activity as of planned or planless 
ordering of life events. There is every shade of deliberative directing 
of the life current in imagination from the most playful prospecting of 
the world of fancy's possibilities to the constructive anticipations of the 
architect; but to no phase of this self achieving can the term "passive" 
be properly applied. 

Questions and Exercises 

Imagine the inhabitants of Mars with spherical bodies (armless and legless, with- 
out protruberances of any kind), rolling about from point to point in business and 
pleasure, noting critically your experience content as it develops. 

What is the nature and value of "air castles" in the building of a personal life? 

Read Milton's account of Satan's flight through chaos as he leaves the gates of 
hell on his way to the newly created earth, imaging as vividly as possible, and noting 
your critical attitude toward your own objective creation. 

Draw a fancy wall-paper pattern such as you have never seen, composed of cres- 
cents and triangles; and after looking at your drawing steadily for a few minutes, close 
your eyes and see the figures in bright colors, the crescents one color and the triangles 
another. Do you feel satisfied with your creation? 

Can one imagine an "impossible form", that is, one that he simultaneously con- 
demns as wholly absurd? 

References 

Sully, Human Mind, Vol. I. pp. 362-387. 

Hamilton, D. H., Autology, pp. 567-588. 

Bascom, Science of Mind, pp. 148-159. 

Bowne, Introduction to Psychological Theory, pp. 277-278. 

McCosh, Psychology, Cognitive Powers, 167-174. 

Baldwin, Handbook of Psychology, Vol. I, pp. 213-243. 

Dewey, Psychology, pp. 192-201. 

Porter, Human Intellect, pp. 351-376. 

Angell, Psychology, pp. 161-183. 

Snider, Psychology and the Psychosis, Intellect, p. 281 et seq. 



A Syllabus of Psychology 75 

Davis, E'lements of Psychology, pp. 198-215. 
M.imsterberg, Psychology General and Applied, pp. 170-172. 
Major, Elements of Psychology, p. 228 et seq. 
Phillips, Elementary Psychology, index "Imagination". 
Dunlap, System of Psychology, index "Imagination". 
Calkins, First Book in Psychology, index "Imagination". 
Pillsbur}^, Essentials of Psychology, pp. 213-214. 
Titchener, Textbook of Psychology, pp. 416-426. 
Yerkes, Introduction to Psychology, pp. 205-208. 

43. In the natural evolution of the knowledge structure of a mind 
by elaborating its sensory elements, the notional units formed in con- 
ception are combined in larger structures of judgment and reasoning. 
Judgment asserts the agreement, or disagreement, of one idea with anoth- 
er; and by such formal recognition of relationship, it gives meaning to 
one through the meaning of the other. In its verbal embodiment a 
judgment declares the identity of one concept with another, explicitly 
defining it by asserting that it is (in the aspect considered) the other. 
This predication is the essential characteristic of judgment as synthesizing 
cognitive process; thus, in the judgment ^Hhe grass is wet", the concept 
''grass" is formally identified (so far as the present intellectual process 
is concerned) with the concept of 'Svetness". A judgment creates a 
larger mental system by incorporating one concept in another; thus, 
the concept ''wet" gives fuller and more definite meaning to the concept 
"grass". Judgment defines the meaning of a concept by explicit atten- 
tion to one feature of it. 

The loose thinking of much Psychology and Logic is evidenced by 
the statement, common in textbooks in both sciences, that "Judgment 
discerns the agreement of two concepts", or " Judgment asserts the re- 
lation between two objects of thought". A little critical thinking will 
show that a judgment deals specifically with one concept, or "object 
of thought," which it seeks to define or enlarge through its relation to 
another which enters the judgment merely as building material for the 
first concept. These quotations would be less vague and more worthy 
of a place in scientific textbooks, if they were "Judgment discerns the 
agreement of one concept with another," and "Judgment asserts the 
relation of one object of thought to another". Even the merest tyro in 
grammar knows the significance of the "subject" in the sentence, and 
that nothing is said about "fruits" in the declaration that "Apples are 
fruits", or that in "a = b" the relation of b to a is not directly considered. 
A "proposition" in Logic is not a swivel-link union of two terms, that 
may be handled from either end; it is a specific defining of the meaning of 
a term through its relation to another. 

44. Judgment, like conception, is an integrating, or "wholing", 
process, in which the mind seeks by the discovery of a definite relationship 
to unify discrete mental factors into a coherent whole. As a process of 
interpreting new, or less known, concepts in terms of old, or better known 
ones, it effects a re-forming of the units of mental structure; it effects 
a larger synthesis of life materials by bringing one system of mental 



76 A Syllabus of Psychology 

facts into definite vital relation to another. It is a true growing process 
in which one mental sj^stem is assimilated into another. In this apper- 
ceptive process the predicate concept is an ''apperceptive mass" which 
formally receives and orients the subject concept as a new center of a 
growing knowledge system. The mind seeks in judgment a larger syn- 
thesis of organized substance by working over its notional contents. 
While judgment is a distinct form of mental elaboration, the process of 
judging is a widely diffused one. Perception, Conception, Judgment are 
but stages in one process — in the constructive growing of a mind. While 
judgment is essential to the forming of the concept in the first instance, it 
is specifically a further elaboration of the concept through discovered 
relations to another concept. 

A judgment is not a mere fusion of concepts; it is a formal predica- 
tion of the union of one concept with another, fixed in a verbal body. 
Sully says, ''The connection between judging and asserting in words is 
precisely similar to that between forming a concept and naming". Just 
as naming is essential to the complete process of conception so the process 
of judgment is completed in the proposition. The two expressions "the 
yellow rose" and "the rose is yellow" embody essentially different mental 
processes, however much they may appear synonymous in common life. 
The first accepts a relation which the second explicitly determines. The 
transition from "the rose is" yellow" to the "yellow rose " shows the syn- 
thetic nature of judgment as a concept-building process. 

Judgment is impossible without concepts, therefore without terms. 
However, the "propositions" of Logic should not be confounded with the 
judgments of Psychology. Logic deals Avith terms having fixed values; 
it makes assertions about static knowledge forms. Psychology deals 
with concepts as constantly changing processes ; it amplifies the processes 
through their natural growth. Logic is concerned with the formal ex- 
pression of relations of "completed concepts"; Psychology, with the 
processes of thinking concepts into vital union through their kinship to 
each other. 

Questions and Exercises 

Analyze the judgment of an umpire as he declares the runner "safe" at first base 
showing how the concept "runner" is given larger meaning in a constructive thinking 
process. 

Distinguish the "proposition" of Logic from the "judgment" of Psychology, 
comparing "terms" with "concepts" and predicative assertion with elaborative inte- 
gration of thought. 

Show that judgment is involved in conception. 

Explain the judgment "the water is cold" so as to show that it involves but one 
concept "cold water", instead of the two terms of Logic, water and "cold object". 

Show by the use of a Euler diagram the meaning of the proposition that "A part 
of a part is a part of the whole" Why do you feel sure that this statement is true? 

Is a judgment "merely the cognitive emphasising of one feature of a concept"? 

Explain Titchener's statement, on page 217 of his "Primer of Psychology", that 
"judging is a process of rare occurence in consciousness". 

References 

Porter, Human Intellect, pp. 430-439. 
Sully, Human Mind, Vol. I, pp. 434, 457. 



A Syllabus of Psychology 77 

Angell, Psychology, pp. 223-234. 

Dewey, Psychology, pp. 213-220. 

Baldwin, Handbook of Psychology, Vol. I, pp. 283-291. 

Baldwin, Elements of Psychology, pp. 211-216. 

Ladd, Psychology, Descriptive and Explanatory, pp. 445-452. 

Snider, Psychology and the Psychosis, Intellect, pp. 498-507. 

Calkins, First Book in Psychology, pp. 144-147. 

Murray, Introduction to Psychology, pp. 255-260, 

Davis, Elements of Psychology, pp. 224-226. 

Gordy, New Psychology, pp. 305-319. 

Brooks, Mental Science, p. 228 et seq. 

Colvin, Learning Process, pp. 310-312. 

Calkins, First Book in Psychology, pp. 144-153. 

Lang, Primer of General Method, pp. 52-68. 

Pillsbury, Essentials of Psychology, pp. 229-232. 

Titchener, Textbook of Psychology, pp. 540-544. 

Major, Elements of Psychology, pp. 252-257. 

45. Reasoning is mediate judgment; it relates one concept to anoth- 
er through their relation to a third concept. For example, if I judge that 
a small feather-covered object which I see on a branch of a tree will fly 
away, my judgment is indirect, or mediate: I judge it a bird; I judge birds 
fly away; I judge it will fly away. My judgment relates the concept 
that object to the concept flying away through the concept bird to which 
these concepts are separately related, thus, that object — a bird — will 
fly away. The distinction of reasoning from simpler forms of judging 
is essentially a matter of this mediating of the process; reasoning effects 
the union of one concept with another through the medium of a third 
concept related to each. 

In the widest sense ''reasoning" is synonymous with '' thinking '% 
that is, with the organizing phase of all knowing from the simplest per- 
ception to the m.ost complex deliberative processes of the philosopher's 
system. In the narrower technical sense, however, it is restricted to th^ 
establishing of relationship between ideas through recognition of other 
relationships. Judging, dealing with but two objects of thought, is 
necessarily direct, or immediate, while reasoning, dealing with three or 
more, arrives at its judgment by auxiliary judgments. The mental pro- 
cess expressed by "it is raining", when I see the drops falling, is less 
complex than the same judgment when I see passing people carrying 
raised umbrellas; in the second I ''infer" the judgment that people carry 
umbrellas over them.selves when it is raining. There is, however, infer- 
ence in the simplest judgment; and just as a concept is a "contracted 
judgment", so a judgm^ent is a "contracted reasoning". 

Reasoning is strictly a teleological process; it has been called "pur- 
posive thinking". It is thinking directed to the accomplishment of some 
desired end. All knowledge is growth, rather a continuous growing, and 
reasoning is but its highest stage; hence reasoning is entitled to the dis- 
tinctive term "purposive" only in the sense that its purposing is more 
formal. It is a rationally directed apperceptive process in which one 
concept is incorporated into another through definitely progressive stages 



78 A Syllabus of Psychology 

of assimilation. This is readily seen in the formal statement of the 
syllogism. 

Reasoning may be defined as a succession of judgments leading to a 
final judgment. Since this basing of a judgment on a judgment is the 
essence of reasoning, it is common to say that ''reasoning is discerning- 
relationships among judgments in the way in which judging is discerning 
relationships among concepts". But this is not a clear statement of the 
facts; for reasoning, at least in Psychology, deals directly with the con- 
cepts. Its ^' unification of thoughts ", or judgments, is in its final purpose 
and result a unification of concepts. 

In Logic the ''terms" and "propositions" are dealt with as static 
expressions of results (?) of thinking; thus, in the formal reasoning, — 

(1) Apples are good to eat; 

(2) that object is an apple; 

(3) that object is good to eat, — 

the term "that object" is held to have identically the same meaning in 
the second and third propositions; also, the second proposition is held to 
be "a completed judgment" with unchanging value wherever it occurs 
in an argument. In Psychology there are no "static concepts" of im- 
mobile character in any knowing process. The concepts and judgments 
are alike processes, which will not "stay put" in any succession of apper- 
ceptive building of the mental content. What Logic "views from with- 
out" as objective beings, Psychology "views from within" as subjective 
becomings. 

Questions and Exercises 

Criticize Robertson's statement on page 179 of his "Elements of Psychology", 
that "Reasoning is judgment explicated; judgment is reasoning boiled down; a coA- 
cept is condensed judgment". 

How do you know that the flowers will bloom, next spring? 

Can you discover discrete thought movements in your "thinking out" a plan 
for a week's vacation, that is, reasoning units of conclusion that constitute distinct 
stages in your thinking? Can you discover in such thinking well-marked examples 
of syllogism, either explicit or in enthymeme? 

Why does one's prejudice bias his reasoning, so that he may honestly reach a 
false conclusion from truthful data? 

46. Induction and Deduction There are two forms of reason- 
ing, or rather two stages in the process : Inductive Reasoning and Deduc- 
tive Reasoning. The second of these, given lasting form in the Organon 
of Aristotle, is the accepted method of thinking in formal Logic; the first, 
made prominent in the Novum Organum of Bacon nineteen centuries 
after Aristotle, is the common method of all modern observational 
science. The psychologist is interested in this distinction of the induc- 
tive and deductive phases of reasoning only as far as he discerns in them 
distinct stages in the elaborative growth of knowledge ; with the relative 
values and validities of induction and deduction as means of arriving at 
generalized truth, the controversy of the logicians, he has directl}^ noth- 
ing to do. 



A Syllabus of Psychology 79 

Deduction was not only the first form of thought-movement to be 
critically investigated, it is the fundamental form in all systematic pur- 
posive thinking. All inductive reasoning is in the last analysis deductive. 
It is the essence of all reasoning to relate a particular to a universal, that 
is, to evaluate a present life-center in terms of a life system originated in 
previous growth. In deduction a concept is applied to a new perceptive 
fact to define it and to give it concrete value in the life structure. All 
growth in knowledge proceeds from the life that is to the larger and better 
organized life that is apperceptively possible; and "deductive reasoning", 
in its strictly technical sense, is incorporating a new element into the 
organic structure through the medium of an organic unit of that struc- 
ture. It places the particular fact in the universal system by means of 
its relation to a subordinate system. Deduction is a process of mental 
assimilation through subsuming a particular fact under a more general 
fact; thus, in looking from my window at a white substance covering the 
ground, if I say 'Hhat substance is cold", I have brought that substance 
into the general class of cold things by subsuming it under the class 
snow, which I more or less definitely accept as a connecting medium. 

Deductive reasoning is formally expressed in the Syllogism, as in 
the example just given — 

(1) Snow is cold; 

(2) that is snow; 

(3) that is cold. 

The typical syllogism consists of three judgments, of which the third 
is the final cause of the reasoning process as a whole. In judging that 
that substance is cold two subordinate judgments are involved, namely, 
that it is snow and that snow is cold. The proper use of the syllogism 
and its various forms in which effective reasoning may be cast concerns 
the logician rather than the psychologist; the psychologist describes and 
explains how we reason (in a ''fact science"), and the logician determines 
how we should reason (in a ''normative science"). 

The "middle term" of a syllogism is the medium of comparison of 
the "minor term" to the "major term"; thus in the syllogism in the 
paragraph above, the middle term is "snow", the minor term is "that 
substance", and the major term is "cold (substance)". The middle 
term is the characteristic fact in the syllogistic form of reasoning; it 
effects the vital connection of the particular mental fact designated bj^ 
the minor term with its defining concept embodied in the major term. 
Porter says, "In every syllogism the force of reasoning depends on what 
is called the middle term". This is forcibly true as we view the syllo- 
gism as a "mediate judgment" concerned with concepts, rather than a 
chain of judgments. 

The term "inductive reasoning" designates in a very loose way the 
deriving of a "general judgment" from a number of relatively independ- 
ent "particular judgments". The effect of this rather complex process 
is to sum up in a single proposition, as a generalized truth relating to a 



80 A Syllabus of Psychology 

class of objects, what is stated in detail in the separate particular propo- 
sitions; thus, from the particular judgments — 

Apples are perishable, 

pears are perishable, 

peaches are perishable, 

plums are perishable, 

grapes are perishable, — 
we arrive by induction at the general judgment that fruits are perishable. 
Induction is, however, more than a mere summation; it always advances 
beyond the "aggregate knowledge of the particular judgments". It is 
based upon the assumed reasoning canon that '^what is true of many in 
a class is true of all the class". 

The so-called ''inductive syllogism", as exemplified in the reasoning 
about the perishableness of fruits, is not a syllogism; introspective ex- 
amination of this complex process reveals a number of mediate judgments 
that may be formally expressed in syllogisms. The ''generalization" 
of induction is a complex conceptive process that is much more than a 
mere adding of parts; it advances to a new mental unit through inte- 
grating an individual fact into an existing universal. To simplify the 
content of mental life by tying judgments up in bundles (if that were 
possible) is not reasoning; the condensing of the judgments of particulars 
into the general judgment is a creating of a new judgment, in which the 
concepts appear in new stages of their evolution. The term "fruits" 
in the induction above is much more than a common name for apples- 
pears-peaches-plums-grapes. 

It is misleading to say, "that induction is reasoning which proceeds 
from the particular to the general", in so far as it is intended to designate 
a complete thought movement; all reasoning relates a particular to a 
universal and is teleologically concerned with the particular. It is fre- 
quently said that "induction must precede deduction", for "we cannot 
deduce particulars from generals until we have first made the generals"; 
it would be just as true (or false?) to say that we cannot know particulars 
until we first have generals in which to define them. This is the old 
quibble of the hen and the first egg. The fact is that induction and de- 
duction are not successive stages, or discrete steps, in a life movement; 
they are but two aspects of one movement. Every complete thought 
process is both inductive and deductive. The mental units built up in 
perceptive experience are rationalized in coherent systems by elaborative 
thinking; and this thinking of details into structural unity may be viewed 
either as induction or as deduction, according as the process is intro- 
spectively considered as an apperceptive structure or a vitalizing incre- 
ment. Induction is formal conception; deduction is formal perception. 

Questions and Exercises 

Examine critically your proof of a simple geometric theorem to discover whether 
each "step" in the process is a syllogism. 

Show that no induction is significant in the building of a thought life until it is 
extended deductively to a particular not include in the generalization. 

What is "a perfect induction"; and how do you know that "men are mortal"? 



A Syllabus of Psychology 81 

How did the superstition that "thirteen is an unlucky number" originate? 
What is meant by "inductive teaching"; and what is the essential weakness of 
the method when strictly adhered to? 

Try to conceive of a human life devoid of reasoning. What is a "fool"? 

References 

Porter, Human Intellect, p. 439 et seq. 

Sully, Human Mind, Vol. I, pp. 459-475. 

Angell, Psychology, pp. 235-255. 

Dewey, Psychology, pp. 220-231. 

Baldwin, Handbook of Psychology, Vol. I, pp. 299-310. 

Baldwin, Elements of Psychology, pp. 216-221. 

Brooks, Mental Science, p. 273 et seq. 

Calkins, First Book in Psychology, pp. 148-162. 

Gordy, New Psychology, pp. 230-245. 

Murray, Introduction to Psychology, p. 260 et seq. 

Snider, Psychology and the Psychosis, Intellect, pp. 507-512. 

Read, Introductory Psychology, p. 243 et seq. 

Major, Elements of Psychology, pp. 256-268. 

Pillsbury, Essentials of Psychology, pp. 216-237. 

47. Fallacies. Thinking as the process of elaborating ideas and 
more complex knowledge structures out of perceptional elements is fre- 
quently abortive in its results. Just as a carpenter may build an unsatis- 
factory house out of good materials so a thinker may fail of truth and 
efficient thought systems through lack of skill and definiteness of. aim. 
The normative science of Logic is concerned with how one ought to think 
to reach valuable results, while the descriptive science of Psychology 
deals with how one does think in the organization of his knowledge 
even when in error. While the logician studies fallacies in the light of 
his ideal norms, the psychologist is satisfied to define and explain them 
as actual life processes. A fallacy, in Psychology, is an elaborative cog- 
nitive process resulting in error, that is, in wandering {erro^ to wander) 
away from right cognitive growth. This definition, which is broader than 
that commonly accepted in Logic, includes all forms of incorrect think- 
ing, such as: I see a bright light in the horizon, and think there is a fire; 
soon my fallacy is revealed to me by the appearance of the rising moon. 
The psychologist's faith is fixed in the belief that it is natural for men to 
think right. That one should lose his way and should need logical sign- 
boards (moods, figures, etc.) does not immediately concern him. He 
otily knows that his thoughts are sometimes erroneous, and he is satisfied 
when he can know when and how he went astray. In this use of the 
term ^'fallacy" it cannot be sharply distinguished from a sense illusion 
on the one hand nor from a wrongly planned life on the other; any failure 
to live right in cognitive growth is a fallacy. The psychologist need not 
distinguish between the fallacies of induction and those of deduction, 
and he has no need for the beautiful classifications of formal logic. It is 
a valuable exercise to retrace a thought process by which an erroneous 
result has been reached, seeking to discover how you have gone astray. 



82 A Syllabus of Psychology 

In all such retrospective introspective study it is important that the 
fallacies be viewed as mere failures to live right, never as perverse efforts 
to live wrong. 

Questions and Exercises 

Can you give an experience in which you have reached an erroneous result through 
confusion as to the meaning of a word — not an artificial, made-to-order example, but 
an actual event? 

Give an example of the use of a question-begging epithet in political discussion 
leading to an untrue conclusion. 

Explain the fallacy of "seeing a ghost" in a white fence post after listening to 
an evening of ghost stories. 

How do Christian people convince themselves that Christians may go to war? 

Give an example in your own experience of the fallacy of pout hoc eprgo propter 
hoc. 

How does the make-believe of child's play differ from ghost-seeing? 

References 

Stout, Analytic Psychology, Vol. II, pp. 262-265. 

Phillips, Elementary Psychology, pp. 218-221. 

Morgan, Psychology for Teachers, pp. 238-240. 

Davis, Elements of Psychology, pp. 236-238. 

Baker, Elementary Psychology, pp. 147-151, 160-163. 

Brooks, Mental Science, pp. 306-309, 316-318. 

Seashore, Elementary Experiments in Psychology, pp. 172-190. 

Halleck, Psychology and Psychic Culture, pp. 217-221. 

48. Knowledge is conscious growth. It is that aspect of human 
life, as revealed in consciousness, which pertains to the enlargement and 
organization of the personal being. Knowledge, or knowing, is the pro- 
gressive realization of self through integrating experiences into the mental 
content. It is active being, a becoming, not a static accumulation. So 
far as it concerns the psychologist, the word ''knowledge' ' may be spelled 
with ing for its final syllable; it is essentially a process, not a product. 
In the last analysis knowledge is the man himself, conscious of himself 
as a growing entity; knowing (or knowledge) is interpreting one's own 
states as they relate to himself. The knower is what he knows ; he knows 
what he is. Schelling said, ''that only is knowing, Vhen knowing and 
being are the same thing". Knowing is conscious life, progressive being 
revealed in consciousness. "To know is to be conscious of the facts of 
our being", as our facts; in knowing we comprehend our own vital move- 
ments as they contribute to our growth. 

Knowing is not only conscious vital activity, it is consciousness of 
something. Knowing is "objective consciousness", that is, it is always 
concerned with objects, or "things". The "thing" known may be 
objectified as "an external physical fact" or as "an internal mental 
fact"; but in either case its "thinghood" or "thingness" consists in 
its being to the knower "a separable or distinguishable object of thought ". 
We know "things" as they belong to us, in our world of conscious life. 

It is a common error of naive thinking to regard knowledge as some- 



A Syllabus of Psychology 83 

thing apart from the mind in which it is in some way '^ contained", as 
the chair is contained in the room. In this way ''knowledge" is dis- 
tinguished from "knowing", as a product from the process which pro- 
duces it. It is in this sense that one is said to ''acquire knowledge"; 
but it should be noted that knowledge cannot be "taken into the mind" 
ready-made, as a static product. One does not acquire knowledge as he 
acquires sea shells by picking them up along the beach; "acquiring knowl- 
edge" is developing mind through experience. 

In a somewhat arbitrary way a distinction has been made between 
two kinds of knowledge: "knowledge of acquaintance" and "knowledge 
about", or knowledge that a thing is and knowledge of what it is. This 
classification is most clearly stated in modern Psychology by James, who 
admits, however, that the terms are practically relative. The purpose is 
to discriminate the elaborated forms of meaning in experience from the 
simpler forms of acceptance of the facts. "To know may mean either 
to perceive or apprehend, or to understand or comprehend". In this 
view sense-perception may give acquaintance with the world, but it is 
only in the higher forms of cognition (in judgment and reasoning) that 
we "ascend " to understanding it. This would seem to be an unnecessary 
refinement of classification, since there can be no "acquaintance" except 
through "understanding"; we acquire " knowledge-that " only as it be- 
comes for us "knowledge-what". A person's knowledge is a systematic 
explanation of his world, in its perceptive elements as truly as in its logical 
inferences; it is such an explanation as gives each bit of experience its 
proper place in his life structure. The most elementary forms of per- 
ceptive knowing require explanatory valuation; the growing mind se- 
lects its perceptions through their meanings, and the "that" of knowing 
is possible only in the "what". Ladd says, " Cognition is one living pro- 
cess throughout, and valuable as a distinction of its stages and kinds and 
points of departure may be, there is one essential body of characteristics 
to be recognized as everywhere present". 

A word more may be said regarding the place of knowledge in life. 
In knowledge each person builds his own hfe, selecting the materials and 
constructing the fabric. The meaning of all life demands continuous 
reconstruction of its substance, and this conscious remaking of self is 
life. All reality of life is knowledge; and each one gives form to his own 
life in his knowledge systems. Bosanquet says, "Knowledge is the med- 
ium in which our world, as an interrelated whole, exists for us"; and 
again, "Knowledge is the metal construction of reality". 

Questions and Exercises 

What is the distinction between ''knowledge" and ''belief"? 

Discuss the statement of Confucius that, "What we know, to know that we know 
it; and what we do not know, to know that we do not know it: this is knowledge". 

What do you understand by the ^'validity of knowledge"; and "can a man know 
what is not true"? 

Show that "growth in knowledge is a sort of progressive organization of exper- 
ience" — a vital process. 



84 A Syllabus of Psychology 

Is the distinction between "immediate knowledge" and "mediate knowledge" 
a valid one? 

Distinguish, with examples, James's " knowledge-that " and "knowledge-what". 

References 

Ladd, Philosophy of Knowledge, ad lib. 

Porter, Human Intellect, Index. 

Sully, Human Mind, Vol. I, pp. 483, 501. 

Ward, Article in Encyclopaedia Britannica, p. 75 et seq. 

Fullerton, System of Metaphysics, pp. 63-70. 

Montgomery, Philosophical Problems, etc.. Index. 

Hamilton, D. H., Autology, p. 279 et seq. 

Lang, Primer of General Method, Contents. 

Dewey, Psychology, pp. 81-85, 156-158, 201-204, 210-213. 

Wenzlaff , Mental Man, Index. 

Baillie, Idealistic Construction of Experience, p. 44, et seq. 

Robertson, Elements of General Philosophy, Index. 

Hoffding, Problems of Philosophy, Index. 

Gordy,'New Psychology, index "Knowledge". 

Morgan, Psychology for Teachers, p. 229. 

James, Principles of Psychology, index "Knowledge". 

James, Briefer Course in Psychology, index "Knowledge". 



A Syllabus of Psychology 85 

Chapter VI — Affection 

49. Affection (more commonly called ''feeling") is the subjective 
aspect of experience as it relates to the experiencing person. It is con- 
sciousness of worth, or the lack of it, in the experience for the life of which 
it is a part. It is distinguished on the one hand from the objective cogni- 
tive content of the experience, and on the other from its active volitional 
expression. It is in feeling that volitional activity and cognitive growth 
become significant in the appreciation of the personal self; feeling is 
subjective valuing of mental states and processes. Since knowing in all 
its forms has objective reference while feeling has reference solely to the 
experiencing person, knowledge and feeling have been distinguished as 
''objective consciousness" and "subjective consciousness". They are 
the outer and inner aspects of conscious life. 

The technical use of the term "feeling" in Psychology to denote the 
inner affective phase of conscious life should be clearly distinguished from 
the common use to denote cognitive touching. Feeling a piece of cloth 
is "active touching", as looking is "active seeing", and listening is "act- 
ive hearing"; they are all cognitive aspects of experience. To know the 
coldness of ice by "feeling" it in contact with the end-organs of tempera- 
ture is a phase of experience clearly distinguishable from the pleasantness 
or unpleasantness of its affective valuation. 

Experiences are valued by the personal self according to their contri- 
bution to its development; those that promote life ar.e welcomed and 
enjoyed, while those that interfere with or destroy life are rejected and 
disliked. Every experience is a metabolic process, altering the life struc- 
ture in both its mental and its bodily aspects. If it is anabolic, building 
up the organic structure, it is agreeable; but if it is catabolic, tearing down 
the structure, it is disagreeable. In general, the feeling aspects of those 
experiences that promote life are pleasant, while the feeling aspect of 
those that retard life are unpleasant. Thus, the fundamental classi- 
fication of experiences as "pleasant" and "unpleasant" depends upon 
their subjective significance to the life in which they occur. Baldwin 
says "Feeling is the sense in the mind that it is itself in some way influenc- 
ed for good or ill by what goes on with in it"; and Beaunis (quoted by 
Ribot) says, "Agreeable states are the correlatives of actions which con- 
duce to the well-being or preservation of the individual". 

Questions and Exercises 

Distinguish in critical introspective analysis the blanket tone of "feeling good" 
in a pleasure-giving situation, as when you enter a warm room cold from exposure to 
outer winter air, from the "knowing of the external cause" of the experience. 

Experiment in sniffing (actively smelling) a carnation held to the nose, to dis- 
tinguish between "knowing" the odor and "feeling" its agreeableness. Direct your 
attention alternately to the two aspects, endeavoring to know critically and to feel 
keenly; and determine whether vivid awareness of the one tends to blur consciousness 
of the other. 



86 A Syllabus of Psychology 

Does "paying attention" to your feeling increase the pleasantness or unpleasant- 
ness? Does this magnifying of hedonic-tone differ from the similar magnifying of 
sense-perception on the knowledge side of experience? 

Would the evolution of humanity be promoted if more attention were given in 
our schools to sensitive appreciation of experience states? 

References 

Ladd, Philosophy of Knowledge, pp. 165-166. 

Dewey, Psychology, pp. 246-249. 

Titchener, Textbook of Psychology, pp. 225-240, 263. 

Titchener, Psychology of Feeling and Attention, ad lib, 

Ribot, Psychology of the Emotions, pp. 31-32, 49-60. 

Marshall, Consciousness, pp. 497-505. 

Kulpe, Outlines of Psychology, pp. 225-230. 

Stout, Analytical Psychology, Vol. I, pp. 115-122, Vol. II, p. 268 et seq. 

Stout, Manual of Psychology, pp. 210-240. 

Pillsbury, Essentials of Psychology, pp. 258-271. 

Angell, Psychology, p. 256 et seq. 

Major, Elements of Psychology, p. 289 et seq. 

50. Physiological theory of feeling. The affective, or feeling, 
phase of consciousness is a kind of life thermometer, which rises in satis- 
faction as the experience contributes to the life, and falls as the exper- 
ience detracts from the life. In general, the pleasantness of an experience 
is a valid index to its value in the life; and unpleasantness in a normal 
healthy life indicates objectionable experience. Thus, Ebinghause says, 
''Pleasantness indicates that the impressions made upon the organism 
are adapted to the needs or capacities of the organism, or at least to that 
part of the organism which is directly affected; unpleasantness indicates 
that the impressions are ill adapted or harmful". Similarly Murray 
says, ''Pleasure is the consciousness arising from the stimulation of a 
mental state to its normal limit, and no further; pain is the consciousness 
arising from a mental state being strained beyond, or restrained within, 
that limit". While this figure of the thermometer refers to the con- 
sciousness of the rising and falling of the life current, it should not be 
understood to imply an affective "zero-point"; there is no experience that 
is feelingless. 

An interesting attempt to explain the mental side of experience 
through a casual dependence upon body structure is found in the view 
of some recent psychologists that the pleasantness or unpleasantness of 
an experience depends upon friction of the body machinery. If the 
afferent nerve stimulus readily passes over into motor activity through an 
efferent nerve, the experience is agreeable; but if the "transfer" from 
neurone to neurone meets "resistance", the experience is disagreeable. 
In this view, Kulpe says, "we have the three familiar stages : the too easy, 
which does not excite any noticeable feeling; the moderately easy, which 
excites pleasure; and the too difficult, which excites unpleasantness". 
According to this theory, if the machinery is frictionless, the experience 
is feelingless ("Where action is perfectly automatic^ — without resistance — , 
feeling does not exist" — Spencer); if there is slight friction, it is agree- 
able; if there is much friction, it is painful. However satisfactory such 
explanation may be to the physiologist, the psychologist should remem- 



A Syllabus of Psychology 87 

ber that ''feeling" is strictly a mental fact to be explained on the basis 
of the fundamental postulates of his own science. It is not an explana- 
tion of a psychosis to derive it mechanically from a somatosis; and the 
whole physiological theory of neurones and the synapse is on the margin 
of the psychologist's field of study. 

A curious lack of scientific precision in anal3^sis of experience is 
shown by man^^ psychologists in their discussion of ''pleasure" and "pain" 
as "forms of feeling". While we may admit that "feeling is practically 
summed up for us in the two mutually related words pleasure and pain'', 
we should not overlook the fact that these two words signify more than 
mere subjective "feeling" of an experience. They each designate mental 
facts in which both a cognitive and an affective phase may be discrimi- 
nated. The cognitive phase of the pain of toothache originates in sensing 
the disturbed state of the body mechanism, and it is similar in every 
respect to "knowing" the yellow of a dandelion in the sensation referred 
to the retina. To the critical student of conscious mental events, these 
knowings are equally distinct from their concomitant feelings; and there 
is no more reason for treating "pain" as exclusively feeling than for 
treating "color" so. 

Questions and Exercises 

Are all feelings, however simple or complex the experiences in which they are 
found, merely ''agreeableness" or disagreeableness"? 

What is the significance of the phrase ''positive or negative" in Salisbury's state- 
ment that "Feeling is that phase of consciousness by which we attach a value, positive 
or negative, to our experience"? 

Why is one color more pleasing to you than another? Is this also the reason 
why you like one person more than another? 

Explain the statement that "feelings are unsharable. " 

How does the unpleasantness of toothache differ from the unpleasantness of 
sorrow in the death of a friend? 

Distinguish helpful sympathy from hurtful sympathy with a friend in pain. 

What is ' ' happiness ' ' ? 

References 

Ladd, Psychology, Descriptive and Explanatory, Index. 
Murray, Introduction to Psychology, p. 371 et seq. 
Hoffding, Outlines of Psychology, p. 221, et seq. ad lib. 
Spencer, Principles of Psychology, Vol. I, p. 473 et seq. 
Yerkes, Introduction to Psychology, Index. 
Royce, Outlines of Psychology, pp. 163-196. 
Davis, Elements of Psychology, pp. 239-257. 
Morgan, Psychology for Teachers, pp. 44-48. 
Phillips, Elementary Psychology, p. 46 et seq. 
Dumville, Fundamentals of Psychology, pp. 37-38. 
Dunlap, System of Psychology, pp. 242-250. 
Pillsbury, Essentials of Psychology, 16-45 

51. Kinds of feelings. Feelings are commonly classified as "sen- 
suous feelings" and "ideational feelings", sometimes called "lower" 
and "higher" feelings, as they accompany "lower" and "higher" forms 
of cognition. Sensuous feelings originate in sense-perception through 
body states; they are the pleasant-unpleasant valuation of experiences 
directly connected with sensations. Ideational feelings are the affective 
phases of the higher, elaborated cognitions of "emotions" and "senti- 
ments"; they are like sensuous feelings in that the satisfaction or dis- 



88 A Syllabus of Psychology 

satisfaction indicates an anabolic or catabolic effect of the mental state 
upon the whole life structure. 

Two important sub-classes of sensuous feelings may be disting- 
uished: the first comprises the satisfactions and dissatisfactions accom- 
panying sensations localized in definite sense-organs, as in smelling and 
hearing, and the second, the pleasantness and unpleasantnesses accom- 
panying cognitions of general bodily states, as weariness, well-being, etc. 
In the first the subjective valuings of experiences are immediately re- 
ferred to ''organs of special sense"; in the second they are vaguely asso- 
ciated with what are called "systemic", or ''organic sensations". To 
know weariness and to be aware of the disagreeableness of it are readily 
compared with knowing the odor of a carnation and accepting its pleas- 
antness. 

In the "bodily appetites'/, which are conunonly classed as feelings, 
the three aspects of cognitive anticipation, affective valuing, and impul- 
sive seeking are readily distinguished. An appetite is the hunger of the 
organism for larger life; it includes a sense of lack, an apprehension of 
that which will supply the lack, and the going out in active desire for 
such life material. An appetite is as truly cognitive and volitional as 
it is affective. 

Questions and Exercises 

Can you distinguish the unpleasantness of tiredness after prolonged labor from 
the unpleasantness in pain due to pinching the skin on the back of one of your hands 
with the thumb and forefinger of the other? Does the one feeling appear "more 
extended ", or "less localized ", than the other? Try this experiment repeatedly some- 
time when you are very tired, shifting your focalized consciousness at will from the 
one to the other. 

Explain the use of the terms "higher" and "lower" in classifying sensations. 

When you are quite hungry sometime, try to "localize the unpleasantness" (1) 
in the stomach, (2) in the whole body, (3) in the mouth. Can you distinguish the 
knowing phase, the feeling phase, and the doing phase of hunger? 

Show that Wundt's "tridimensional theory of feehng" is invalid and confounds 
conative aspects of experience with purely affective aspects. 

References 

Wenzlaff, Mental Man, pp. 131-135. 

Murray, Introduction to Psychology, pp. 401-403, 404 et seq., 470 et seq. 

Robertson, Elements of Psychology, p. 196. 

Lindner, Empirical Psychology, p. 175 et seq. 

Yerkes, Introduction to Psychology, pp. 173-188. 

Titchener, Textbook of Psychology, p. 473. 

Kulpe, Outlines of Psychology, p. 231. 

Angcll, Psychology, pp. 270-271. 

Dewey, Psychology, pp. 246-346 ad lib. 

Pillsbury, Essentials of Psychology, p. 246. 

Halleck, Psychology and Psychic Culture, p. 246 et seq. 

Read, Introduction to Psychology, pp. 146-148. 

Major, Elements of Psychology, pp. 291-294. 

Davis, Elements of Psychology, pp. 256-257. 

Phillips, Elementary Psychology, pp. 51-53. 

52. James-Lange Theory. The discussion centering about the 
^'James-Lange Theory of Emotions" has contributed much, positively 



A Syllabus of Psychology 89 

and negatively, to a better understanding of the nature of all affective 
phases of consciousness This view, which finds the origin of the emotion 
not in the cognitive image but in its concomitant body-state, is in strik- 
ing contrast with the view that regards the body state as the '^ expression 
of the emotion". James says, ''we feel sony because we cry, angry 
because we strike, afraid because we tremble, and not that we cry, strike, 
or tremble because we are sorry, angry, or fearful, as the case may be". 
According to this theory the affective-state originates in, depends upon, 
or is caused by the body-state, which is itself the immediate result of the 
cognitive-process; thus, as Angell states it, ''we never feel afraid unless 
we have already made certain of the motor reactions which characterize 
fear", and the body-states are "not merely expressions, they are rather 
indispensible causal factors producing the psychical condition which we 
all recognize when we experience it as the genuine emotion". According 
to the older and what is still the more common view, the bear is seen, the 
fear is felt, and the body trembles; according to the James-Lange view, 
the bear is seen, the body trembles, and the fear is felt. In the one, the 
feeling of fear precedes and causes the trembling of the body; in the 
other, the trembling of the body with the rising of the hair on the scalp 
precedes and causes the feeling of fear. In the common theory the feel- 
ing originates directly in knowing the fearful object and the body-state 
is but the physiological accompaniment of the cognitive-affective mental 
state, while in the James-Lange theory the feeling of fear springs from 
the knowledge that the body is trembling and the hair "standing on 
end", which state of the body is thought to arise directly from knowing 
the fearful object. JReduced to its lowest terms, the whole question, 
so vigorously discussed for a quarter of a century, is whether the order of 
procedure in such an experience is knowing the bear, feeling the scare, and 
raising the hair; or knowing the bear, raising the hair, and feeling the 
scare. If it were not for certain important implications of these theories, 
the whole might be ignored by the student as a question of "tweedledum 
andtweedledee". 

The heart of James's whole contention is in the claim that the body 
state is due to the instinctive or reflex reaction of the organism to the 
external stimulus without the subjective valuing of feeling. He claims 
that the motor reaction in the body structure is feelingless, and that the 
feeling is at most but a consequent index to the changed state of the or- 
ganic structure. He says "My theory is that the bodily changes follow 
directly the perception of the exciting fact, and that our feeling of the 
same changes as they occur is the emotion " ; and " The emotion is nothing 
but the feeling of a bodily state, and it has a purely bodily cause ". Stout 
states James's view (which he opposes) thus, "The emotion arises as a 
kind of back-stroke. The primary nervous excitement must overflow 



90 A Syllabus of Psychology 

through efferent nerves, producing changes in the internal organs which 
in their turn give rise to organic sensations. It is the organic sensations 
thus produced which constitute the emotion. " This considers the emotion 
the subjective accompaniment of the instinctive reaction to the stimulus 
of certain situations; the stimulus directly arouses the vital reaction, and 
the altered state of the body thus produced gives rise to the feeling of 
pleasure or displeasure. 

The important truth lying back of the James theory is that the 
motor activity in response to a situation is essential to the existence of 
feeling. Feeling is a subjective valuing of a life event, as that event is 
a "motor discharge" in body tissues. To have an emotion one must 
act; or as Dewey puts it, ''Feeling is an accompaniment of activity". 
The fundamental error, frequently recurring in both sides of the dis- 
cussion of this theory, is the assumption that there is a temporal causal 
order in the aspects of the experience. It is assumed on the one side that 
there is first cognition, then feeling, and then body change; or on the 
other side, that there is first cognition, second body change, and third 
feeling, in causally related sequence. The truth, negatively stated, is 
that neither is the feeling a causal antecedent of the body-state nor is 
the body-state a causal antecedent of the feeling. The affective phase 
of the experience, whether ''lower" ("sensuous") or "higher" ("ideation- 
al") inheres in the life event on the samfe level as the cognitive and cona- 
tive phases, and is not in any sense derivative from either of them or from 
both of them combined. The state of the body, the cognitive activity, 
and the affective appreciation are but distinguishable aspects of a life 
event ; and one of them is no more the ' ' effect ' ' of another than the " form ' ' 
of the table is the effect of its " color". 

This discussion of the cause-and-effect order of the aspects of exper- 
ience is a notable example of pseudo-scientific analysis in Psychology. 
An event in a human life cannot be separated into "processes^' with 
causal connection and a time order; there is no "body process" with 
which the psychologist has any concern, no "cognitive process" as a 
discrete existence apart from the state of the body and the subjective 
valuing, and no "affective process" of quasi-independent course. ^The 
experience, however complex it may appear in its various aspects, is one 
fact in the field of Psychology, one "process in consciousness". Psy- 
chological analysis is necessarily an aspecting; it can never be made a 
partitioning. Each science transforms reality for its own purposes, and 
the scientists in any field must determine the viewpoint and method of 
their study. The immediate matter of Psychology is the personal ex- 
perience as given in consciousness; and the analysis demanded for its 
description and explanation gives its synchronous phases. Neither 
general Biology nor Psychology requires such an artificial separation into 
"part processes" as the contestants on both sides of this controversy 
appear to accept. 



A Syllabus of Psychology 91 

Questions and Exercises 

Try creating an emotion by acting it out in body expression in accordance with 
the James-Lange theory. 

How do you account for the painful ''start " — drawing or quivering of your body — 
when you witness another falhng on a hard pavement? 

Do we remember feehngs, or only their cognitive concomitants? 

In the transition from pleasantness to unpleasantness of experience do we pass 
through a zero point of "feelingless knowing and doing"? 

Throughout the whole of a day act out a good feeling, realizing "the plus of life" — 
"so full that a drop o'erfills it" — , renewing your determination to do so as occasion 
appears to demand; note that the feeling you so determinedly express is introspectively 
discoverable to really exist. 

References 

Titchener, Textbook of Psychology, pp. 474-489. 

James, Briefer Course in Psychology, pp. 375-390; Principles of Psychology, 
Vol. II, p. 449 et seq. 

Villa, Contemporary Psychology, pp. 191-200. 

Wundt, Outlines of Psychology, p. 193. 

Ribot, Psvchologv of the Emotions, pp. 93-97. 

Sully, Human Alind. Vol. II, p. 58. 

Thorndike, Elements of Psychology, pp. 172-173. 

Murray, Introduction to Psychology, pp. 397-401. 

Marshall, Consciousness, pp. 109-111. 

Mitchell, Structure and Growth of the Mind, p. 506 et seq. 

Ladd, Elements of Phvsiological Psychology, p. 519. 

Wenzlaff, The MentafMan, pp. 120-123. 

Stout, Manual of Psychology, pp. 289-297. 

Stout, Groundwork of Psvchology, pp. 192-195. 

Angell, Psychology, pp. 316-318. 

Dewey, Psychology, pp. 246-346, ad lib. 

Pillsbury, Essentials of Psychology, pp. 273-277. 

Yerkes, Introduction to Psychology, p. 285. 

Major, Elements of Psychology, pp. 319-325. 

Dunlap, System of Psychology, pp. 259-261. 

53. Kinds of Ideational Feelings. Two classes of ''higher", 
or Ideational Feelings are commonly distinguished: Emotions and Senti- 
ments. These varieties of the affective aspect of consciousness are alike 
in their complexity; they are not simple feelings, but are life events and 
attitudes characterized by dominant feeling tones. Sentiments differ 
from emotions in that they are relatively more permanent and less in- 
tense. Emotions, viewed purely as affections, are transient feelings, 
while sentiments are abiding emotional dispositions; emotions are mental 
complexes characterized by strong feelings, while sentiments are some- 
what permanent qualities of the personal self as it gives appreciative 
valuation to its experiences. Sentiments are often predispositions to 
emotions, rising in intensity and conative impulse to become emotions; 
on the other hand, emotional states may become fixed in sentiments as 
"affective dispositions ". 

While this classification of the so-called ''higher feelings" as Emo- 
tions and Sentiments appears to be convenient, if not necessarj- under the 
loose terminology of Psj^hology and the demands of popular speech, for 
the description and explanation of psychical processes and events, it 
does not meet the demands of critical science, in that there is no well- 
defined basis for the distinction, and in that it ignores important elements 



92 A Syllabus of Psychology 



>? 



in the facts themselves. The difficulty in classifying feelings, '^ lower 
and ''higher" alike, i. e., all affective aspects of conscious life, arises from 
confusing the cognitive and conative aspects of experience with the affec- 
tive aspect. It is probable that if attention were rigorously directed to 
the subjective valuing of feeling exclusively, the only distinction discov- 
erable in the whole field would be that of pleasantness and unpleasant- 
ness connected with various intellectual and emotional activities. In the 
investigation of the affective phase of conscious life the psychologists 
appear to lose sight of the peculiar abstraction with which they are deal- 
ing in a loose description of a complex of all aspects of the subject matter. 

Questions and Exercises 

Compare the distinction of sentiment and emotion with that of climate and 
weather, that of constitution and health, and that of character and conduct. 

Show by examples that sentiments are more properly "valuing attitudes" than 
"habitual emotions". 

On the supposition that sentiments are elaborated out of emotions, is it essential 
to a sentiment that it continue to grow in emotional stages? Give an example. 

Is your aversion to a particular kind of food a sentiment? See page 291 of Yerkes' 
" Introduction to Pychology ". 

Tell which of the following are sentiments and which are emotions; and where you 
can, name the correlative emotion or sentiment of each: anger, courage, patriotism, 
joy, shame, generosity, grief, sympathy, happiness, regret. 

How does "hate" differ from "anger"? Examine yourself critically to discover 
whether you really hate anything or any person. 

References 

Major, Elements of Psychology, pp. 334-340. 

Yerkes, Introduction to Psychology, p. 185. 

Phillips, Elementary Psychology, pp. 66-68. 

Dumville, Fundamentals of Psychology, pp. 282-301. 

Titchener, Primer of Psychology, pp. 230-231. 

Ladd, Primer of Psychology, pp. 182-183. 

Baldwin, Elements of Psychology, pp. 225-241. 

Munsterberg, Psychology General and Applied, pp. 207-212. 

Stout, Manual of Psychology, pp. 575-580. 

Snider, Feeling, etc., p. 294 et seq, ad lib. 

Ladd, Psychology, Descriptive and Explanatory, index "Sentiments". 

Ladd, Outlines of Descriptive Psychology, index "Sentiments". 

54. Emotions are complex mental states characterized by notable 
disturbance of the affective equilibrium. They are prominent affective 
phases of the more elaborated cognitions and impulses. ''An emotion" 
as an event in personal life has a discrete unity in which the three phases 
of knowing, feeling, and willing are readily discernible. While it is es- 
sentialty a subjective feeling of satisfaction or dissatisfaction, it originates 
in the cognition of a situation and realizes itself in active impulse. The 
core of the emotion is the idea structure; its meaning is the subjective 
valuation; and its form is the active expression. By the very etymology 
of its name, an emotion is an ''out-moving"; it is the conscious self mov- 
ing outward in expression of the satisfaction or dissatisfaction of its own 
state. Just as a cognition is a taking in, so an emotion is a going out; 
and it is this going out that makes the emotion so much a matter of 
"bodily expression". An emotion is always a personal attitude toward 



A Syllabus of Psychology 93 

some object, as to be angry is to be angry with some one, or to be sorry 
is to be sorry for some thing. An emotion is a feeling attendant upon an 
idea and directed toward some object. 

An emotion arises spontaneously under certain conditions. It runs 
its course briefly, usually growing up to a maximum stage and then as 
slowly declining; or it may grow up to a climax of intensity, and give way 
suddenly to a reaction, or '^ revulsion". An emotion may be cultivated 
in its progress to a more rapid or larger growth by the intensifying imagi- 
nation. Emotions grow through expression; and ''the inhibition of 
expression means the death of the emotion". 

Emotions differ from simple pleasure-pain feelings in that they are 
referred to ideas, while feelings are referred to body states. They are 
more complex than the sensuous feelings, since their cognitive concomi- 
tants are more developed. This is easily seen by comparing introspec- 
tiveh^ the unpleasantness of a toothache with the sorrow in learning of 
the death of a friend. They also differ from sensuous feelings in their 
conative impulse; sensuous feelings are subjective valuings of "things 
as they are", while emotions face outward to ''things as they should be". 

The definition of an emotion in Baldwin's Dictionary of Philosophy 
and Psychology, for which Stout and Baldwin are jointly responsible, 
is exceptionally good; it recognizes the presence of the cognitive and 
conative elements and places the emphasis justly upon the affective 
aspect of the mental complex. They say, an emotion is "a total state of 
consciousness considered as involving a distinctive feeling-tone and a 
characteristic trend of activity aroused by a certain situation which is 
either perceived or ideally represented". We have recognized here (a) 
a dominant feeling, (b) a trend of activity, and (c) an apprehension of a 
situation. With characteristic clearness Yerkes says, "Our emotions 
are complex experiences made up of cognitive processes, feelings, and 
volitions. They are classed with feelings simply because in them feelings 
usually are predominantly important". It should, however, be noted 
that, while these complex mental states are emphatically affective and 
impulsive in nature, the feelings and impulses originate in the knowledge 
of the situation, and often the cognitive core is the chief thing revealed 
by introspection. 

Questions and Exercises 

Why is the expression of love essential to its continuance; and why should the 
natural expression of pleasant emotions be cultivated in children? 

Define the terms jealousy, friendship, malice, prejudice, and pity. 

^\Tiy does the too frequent stimulation of sympathy in novel-reading, to which 
the reader can give no natural expression, tend to destroy sympathy in real situations 
in the reader's own life? 

Which aspect of another's experience, his thought or his feeling, is easier to "read 
in his face"? Why? 

Standing before a mirror, affect (feign, simulate) emotions of sorrow, fear, joy, 
etc.; and critically observe your facial expression. Do not artificially force the ex- 
pression, but endeavor to "set up" the emotional tone and let the expression be its 
natural accompaniment. 

Why do certain forms of judicial and executive contact with various sorts of 
people, as in a bank cashier at his window, tend to make the face lacking in emotional 
expression? 



94 A Syllabus of Psychology 

References 

Stout, Groundwork of Psychology, pp. 188-197. 

Stout, Manual of Psychology, pp. 284-288. 

Baldwin, Elements of Psychology, p. 266 et seq. 

Yerkes, Introduction to Psychology, pp. 177-182. 

Angell, Psychology, pp. 315-339. 

Dewey, Psychology, pp. 297-308. 

Calkins, First Book in Psychology, p. 170 et seq. 

Ladd, Primer of Psychology, pp. 175-182. 

Ladd, Outlines of Descriptive Psychology, pp. 238-239. 

Ladd, Psychol og}^, Descriptive and Explanatory, p. 534 et seq. 

Ebinghause, Psychology, (Meyer's trans.), pp. 168-172, 

Kulpe, Outlines of Psychology, (Titchener's trans.), pp. 320-333. 

Pillsbury, Essentials of Psychology, pp. 272-278. 

Bain, Mental Science, p. 215 et seq. 

Major, Elements of Psychology, pp. 315-319. 

Dunlap, System of Psychology, pp. 255-264. 

55. Classificatlcn of emotions. Numerous schemes have been 
proposed in the Classification of Emotions most of which are lacking in 
scientific clearness and precision. A very common classification is into 
Egostic Emotions, Altruistic Emotions, and Cosmic Emotions, meaning 
by egoistic emotions those idealistic feelings that center in the welfare 
of self as distinguished from those that have other objective centers, 
such as joy, content, disappointment, etc.; by altruistic emotions, those 
that center in the welfare of others, either benevolent or malevolent in 
their impulses, such as pity, malice, etc.; by cosmic emotions, those that 
center in the true, the beautiful and the good, as they are appreciatively 
perceived in the environing world, such as delight in the discernment of 
truth, pleasure in the perfection of form, etc. 

This distinction of "egoistic", "altruistic" and "cosmic" emotions 
is worthless in any critical study of the affective aspect of experience, 
since it depends rather upon the cognitive and volitional aspects. Joy 
and love may differ intrinsically as cognitions and impulses in that they 
respectively pertain to self or others, but as affective aspects of life they 
are alike pleasant. All emotions are essentially subjective valuing from 
our own standpoints, and in a very important sense they are all self- 
centered, or "egoistic". While as an "ideational feeling", or idea-cen- 
tered feeling, every emotion originates in knowledge of some object and 
impulsively seeks the welfare (or ill-fare) of something, strictly as a feel- 
ing it begins and ends with the self. 

Another ingenious classification is based primarily upon the time 
aspect of this cognitive-affective activity. This scheme is logically de- 
veloped somewhat as follows: 

^j y fJoj; gladness, content, etc. 

immediate ^Sorrow, depression, discontent, etc. 

T^ , . \ ^ ,. ( Hope, courage, etc. 

Emotions i Prospective | p^^^.^ cowardice, etc. 

,' ^ ^. f Satisfaction, self-gratulation, etc. 

L Retrospective | Rgg^g^, reproach, etc. 



A Syllabus of Psychology 95 

Such a classification as this is of interest to the student of Psychology 
only in afTording him opportunity to discriminate the peculiar cognitive 
or volitional ingredient in each form of experience that causes it to be 
grouped as of the present, the future, or the past. It certainly has little 
warrant or value in well defined scientific analysis. 

This whole subject of kinds of emotions has been so confused by lack 
of logical basis in classification and strict limitation of the matter in hand 
that it is extremely difficult to determine what groupings are most ad- 
vantageous for the beginner in general Psychology. Probably Titchener's 
statement that ^' there are two kinds of emotions, the pleasant and the 
unpleasant", is the safest, if he and others would but hold to it. Pills- 
bury, after accepting this purely affective basis for classifying emotions, 
says, '^Emotions are either pleasant, unpleasant, or, like surprise, in- 
different". Is surprise truly '' indifferent", that is, without feeling 
quality? It is not to be wondered at that a scientist who would make 
such a statement would find, ''The outcome of all the historic attempts at 
classification is disappointment". The cause of all this confusion is 
not far to seek : the term emotions is used to designate forms of experience 
in their three aspects of knowledge, feeling, and action, and in the various 
classifications of these complex mental events the basis is at times affective, 
again conative, and again cognitive. If, as we have here done, we define 
emotions as ''ideational feelings", to be studied as feelings and classified 
as feelings, ignoring, in the abstraction of scientific analysis, the knowing 
and willing aspects, there will be no confusing of bases. Emotions, like 
the lower "sensuous feelings", are primarily of two kinds: pleasant 
emotions and unpleasant emotions. These two fundamental classes 
may, however, be subdivided on the secondary bases of cognitive and 
conative elements into such subordinate classes as will serve the pur- 
poses of detailed description. 

When, for example, we call joy an "emotion", the term connotes 
the entire experience with emphasis upon its affective phase. For the 
purpose of our descriptive science, however, we regard it as purely "a 
feeling". It is a pleasant feeling due to the anabolic assimilation of 
valued life materials in healthful action. In the description and explana- 
tion of experiences scientific analysis deals with the three phases separate- 
ly; and there need be no confusion in such study, if we will accept the 
restriction of the abstraction. 

Questions and Exercises 

Why is it easier to classify sensations ("visual," ''tactile", ''auditory", etc.) 
than it is to classify, feehngs, or emotions? 

Is the emotion of anger in a dog identical in nature with the emotion of anger in a 
person? 

Is it true that "self-love and social- are the same"; and that "altruistic emotions 
are but poorly distinguished forms of egoistic emotions"? 

Show that the term "cosmic emotions" designates a purely artificial group of 
satisfactions in life. 



96 A Syllabus of Psychology 

Is "interest" subjectively a feeling of value and objectively a dynamic seeking 
of an object; and is ''interest" an element in all emotion? 
Is "shame" an emotion? "Curiosity"? "Contempt"? 
Why is religion more emotional than the study of geometry? 

References 

Titchener, Textbook of Psychology, pp. 489-493. 
Calkins, First Book in Psychology, p. 175 et seq, 
Thorndike, Elements of Psychology, pp. 75-81. 
Kulpe, Outlines of Psychology, pp. 322-326. 
Halleck, Psychology and Psychic Culture, pp. 253-272. 
Pillsbury, Essentials of Psychology, p. 278. 
'James, Principles of Psychology, Vol. II, p. 454, 
Buell, Essentials of Psychology, p. 190. 
Putnam, Textbook of Psychology, pp. 166-185. 
Robertson, Elements of Psychology, p. 206 et seq. 
Maher, Psychology, pp. 446-449. 
Patrick, Psychology for Teachers, p. 285 et seq. 
Baker, Elementary Psychology, p. 180 et seq. 
Phillips, Elementary Psychology, p. 51 et seq. 

Titchener, Textbook of Psychology, pp. 489-493 ; Primer of Psychology,pp. 150-157. 
Calkins, First Book in Psychology, pp. 175-177. 

56. Antagonism of feeling and linowing. An apparent antag- 
onism of feeling and knowing has led to such fallacious statements in 
some textbooks on Psychology as, ''We can not know intensely and feel 
or will intensely at the same time ; or feel intensely and know or will in- 
tensely at the same time". The truth, on the contrary, is that feeling 
quickens thinking and increases volitional activity. "Under the stimu- 
lus of strong feeling a man will accomplish (both in intellection and in 
executive action) what he would not have believed himself capable of 
performing". This is not only true when the feeling is the natural sub- 
jective concomitant of the particular knowing process, that is, the ap- 
preciative enjoyment of a definite intellectual activity, but it is also 
true at times when a strong feeling tone suffuses the whole mind and 
renders more vigorous all its action, whether related to the source of the 
emotion or not. Are not some of the brilliant passages of ''Rasselas" 
due to the fact that Johnson wrote the book ''in the evenings of a single 
week" to pay his mother's funeral expenses? The statement that "the 
current of thought and the current of feeling at times flow in opposite 
direction " is due to an erroneous conception of the nature of feeling. The 
same writer speaks of thinking and feeling as two "activities to be brought 
into harmony"! And again he says, "Profound thinking may thus 
overcome and exclude all feeling; or very intense feeling may exclude 
all possibility of connected thinking". Much more of similar tenor 
might be quoted from various writers of greater or less authority in Psy- 
chology, all of which reveals very vague conceptions of the nature of 
emotions and a prevalent lack of scientific analysis in the study of con- 
scious experience. The way out of all this confusion would appear to be 
plain enough. If "experiences " are to be studied in their three aspects of 
knowing, feeling, and willing, then when we are critically investigating 



A Syllabus of Psychology 97 

one of these aspects, abstracted from the others for that purpose, the 
others for the time being should be rigorously ignored — that is, when 
we are describing and explaining the affective aspect as '' emotion", 
the cognitive and conative aspects cannot be recognized as determining 
^ 'forms of feeling". 

Thus, to distinguish '^prejudice", "envy" and "ambition" as 
"kinds of emotions" through their cognitive phases is as meaningless 
for the purposes of science as to group bits of ore in the qualitative anal- 
ysis of the mineralogist into classes as to their squareness, roundness, 
etc. If the elemental composition is what is considered, that is exclus- 
ively one thing; but if the geometric forms of the lumps are considered, 
that is an entirely irrelevant matter. Both cannot be dealt with simul- 
taneously in any true scientific study. Similarly any critical study of 
the affective phase of experience should not be obscured by considering 
concomitant aspects of knowing and willing. 

Questions and Exercises 

Does 3'our own experience appear to confirm, or refute thb doctrine of antagonism 
between emotions and knowing? 

Can you explain the nervous fumbling in hurried doing of some simple act, as slip- 
ping in a collar button, on the ground of " antagonism of emotion to skilful execution?" 

Is the intense enjoyment of a subject by a pupil a safe motive to be appealed to 
by a teacher in securing vigorous study? Is there danger that his feeling may become 
so intense as to interfere with successful work? 

Is not all the confusion in the classification of emotions due to the lack of precis- 
ion in distinguishing the affective phase of experience from the cognitive phase? 

References 

Gordy, New Ps3^cholog3^, pp. 155-156. 
Halleck, Psychology and Psychic Culture, p. 178. 
Putnam, Textbook of Psychology, p. 147. 
Patrick, Psychology for Teachers, pp. 294-295. 
Ladd, Primer of Psychology', p. 180. 

57. Sentiments are "emotional dispositions" connected with 
certain ideal constructions of what ought to be rather than the more 
definite ideational feelings of what actually is. A sentiment is a pre- 
vailing emotional tone accompnying a complex form of ideation or 
judgment, a sort of 'general susceptibility to certain kinds of emotions'. 
Such affective phases of conscious life are related to emotions somewhat 
as climate is related to states of weather; they are both permanent back- 
grounds and prevalent forms of manifestation. Siout says, "a senti- 
ment is constituted by the manifold emotions in which it manifests itself " ; 
thus the sentiment of patriotism may be viewed as the totality of emotions 
comprised in a general benevolent attitude toward one's country. While 
the totality of ideational feelings in the sentiment of patriotism is in 
general "well-wishing" toward the country, the constituent emotions 
have various forms; thus, one's love for his country may be manifested 
in malevolent feelings toward its enemies. To have patriotic sentiment 
one must know his country appreciatively; and just as such knowledge 



98 A Syllabus of Psychology 

may include in its details ideas of something that are not for the country's 
good, so the emotions connected with the ideas of these unfavorable facts 
may be unpleasant. 

A sentiment is an abstraction that is never given in consciousness in 
its entirety. It is a kind of substantial background which may rise 
into emotions of various kinds. Thus Stout correctly says, ''Such a 
sentiment as friendship cannot be experienced in its totality at any one 
moment". Sentiments arise out of ideal constructions of thought to 
which no definite objectified situation corresponds, hence they lack in 
individual clearness and intensity. While an emotion may originate 
directly in awareness of a situation, a sentiment depends upon a more 
elaborate and abiding embodiment of thought in character. Sentiments 
doubtless originate in concrete bodily feelings in perceptual experiencing, 
but they develop into relatively permanent subjective tones and atti- 
tudes. As effective phases of consciousness they are less intense than 
emotions, because they are further removed from sensuous feelings. 
The awareness of sentiments appears to be rather the consciousness of 
self in organic character than consciousness of an experiential event in 
the progress of the self. A man's awareness of his sentiment of honesty 
is certainly not a consciousness of satisfaction or dissatisfaction in a 
particular fact of his life. Viewed exclusively as affections, sentiments 
are subjective valuings of life in its highest levels, the finding of pleasure 
in the greater movements of self-realization. In his sentiments a man 
enjoys his most worthy treasures, either as actually present or antici- 
pated in natural growth. 

The student should note here, once more, that the difficulty in dis- 
cussing the nature of sentiments arises from confusing the affections with 
the cognitive and volitional aspects of conscious life. The names of the 
various sentiments designate mental facts in which the three phases of 
feeling, knowing and willing are easily distinguishable in psychological 
analysis. The important thing when studying them as feelings is to 
rigorously exclude from the analysis the other two concomitant aspects 
which are inseparably a part of them and to treat them by abstraction 
as mere feelings. 

Questions and Exercises 

Criticize Major's definition of sentiment and the following explication on page 333 
of his "Elements of Psychology". 

Define "patriotism" and "piety", explicitly and fully. 

What part has sentiment in heroizing William McKinley? 

Explain this statement of Stout ("Groundwork of Psychology", p. 223) : "Senti- 
ments are dispositions, not actual feelings". 

Is "gratitude" an emotion or a sentiment? 

References 

Stout, Manual of Psychology, pp. 575-580. 
Angell, Psychology, p. 336. * 

Yerkes, Introduction to Psychology, p. 185. 
Titchener, Textbook of Psychology, pp. 498-500. 



A Syllabus of Psychology 99 

Ladd, Primer of Psychology, 'p. 182. 

Read, Introduction to Psychology, pp. 267-271. 

Betts, Mind and its Education, pp. 189-192. 

Snider, Feeling etc., p. 394 et seq. ad lib. 

Major, Elements of Psychology, pp. 333-350. 

Phillips, Elements of Psychology, pp. 66-68. 

Dumville, Fundamentals of Psychology, pp. 282-301. 

58. Three great classes of sentiments are commonly recognized: 
intellectual sentiments, or '4ove of truth"; aesthetic sentiments, or 
''admiration of beauty"; and ethical sentiments, or '^ reverence for good- 
ness". The basis of this classification is found in the common tricho- 
tomy of experience as knowing, feeling and willing. ''The true" is the 
perfect in knowing; "the beautiful" is the perfect in feeling; and "the 
good" is the perfect in willing. The sentiments are satisfaction in the 
ideals of perfection in the three great aspects of human life. It is in the 
sentiments that the soul finds its highest forms of subjective appreciation 
of its possibilities, valuing its own realities from the three points of view 
of its ideally perfect life. 

Other classes of sentiments have been recognized, such as "religious 
sentiments", etc., but there would appear to be no need for such addi- 
tional classes. The so-called "religious sentiments", for example, owe 
their separate grouping to an artificial distinction between "the right" 
and "the good". 

Intellectual Sentiments are eternal satisfaction in right knowing. 
The human mind by its very nature enjoys its own cognitive growth; 
all true knowledge is satisfying. Logicians have distinguished two forms 
of truth: the "truth of fact", or concord of fact with fact; and the "truth 
of conception", or the concord of knowledge with its object. In the last 
analysis these two are the same, and psychologically they are on the 
affective side "the pleasure of knowledge for its own sake." This senti- 
ment, common in some degree to all men, is a passion in some; it is often 
said that the characteristic fact about the life of John Locke was his 
"love of truth". 

Aesthetic Sentiments are the fundamental agreeableness of the 
harmony of sensuous feelings. Intellectual sentiments depend upon 
the agreement of a part with complemental parts in the whole of cog- 
nitive life; aesthetic sentiments depend upon a balanced agreement of 
all parts in a whole, a harmonious blending of all in perfection of form, 
of sound, etc. While this "sentiment of beauty" has its objective cause 
and hence its cognitive sensuous element, it is essentially a feeling of 
pleasure in the subjective state. It is due to sensing the ideal as presented 
by the imagination; Hegel defined beauty as "the ideal as it reveals 
itself to sense", and probably no simpler definition of aesthetic senti- 
ment can be given than "love of the beautiful". 



100 A Syllabus of Psychology 

Ethical Sentiments are satisfaction in ideal human conduct. Just 
as perfect knowledge gives rise to intellectual sentiment and perfect 
sensuous ideals give rise to aesthetic sentiment, so perfect action in rela- 
tion to others gives rise to ethical sentiment. The science of Ethics 
deals with the ideal in human conduct, that is, with perfection in rational 
action in the social world ; and the ethical sentiment is the pleasure which 
springs from contemplation of such constructive participation in the 
lives of others. The moral sentiment gives ^'worthiness" to conduct 
as possible self-realization. 

It is an error to identify ethical sentiment with "conscience", as 
that tprm is used in the science of Ethics. Ethical sentiment is merely 
the feeling of satisfaction in ideal conduct, while conscience is essentially 
an impulse to such conduct. There is no more "feeling of obligation" 
in ethical sentiment than in intellectual sentiment or aesthetic sentiment. 
One is "impelled" to perfect knowledge as he is to perfect feeling and to 
perfect doing, but this impulsion is clearly distinguishable from the mere 
agreebleness of such knowing, feeling,, or doing. While the sentiments 
as given in conscious experience are all inseparabty connected with know- 
ing and doing, they are in the abstraction of scientific analysis exclus- 
ively affective in character. 

Questions and Exercises 

Is it natural for man to love the true, the beautiful, and the good? Why? 

Distinguish by enumerating specific qualities a typical ''good man" from a typ- 
ical "bad man" ; and note whether the characteristics are primarily cognitive, affective, 
or conative. What part do sentiments have in character? 

Why is clothing— ladies hats, for example — ,when "in style" beautiful without 
regard to harmony of form or structure? 

Explain the statement that "goodness demands an object of the sentiment"; 
and show that even God himself would not be "good" as a solitary existence. 

References 

Titchener, Textbook of Psychology, pp. 500-503. 

Read, Introductory Psychology, pp. 267-268. 

Ladd, Primer of Psychology, pp. 183-189. 

Baldwin, Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology, Vol. II, p. 521. 

Wenzlaff, Mental Man, p. 133. 

Putnam, Textbook of Psychology, pp. 188-209. 

Dumville, Fundamentals of Psychology, p. 286. 

59. Moods, temperaments, etc. There are certain terms relat- 
ing to affective aspects of experience, used loosely in common speech 
and in troublesome confusion in scientific description, that demand brief 
explanation. Such are ''mood", ''temperament", "disposition", "pas- 
sion", etc. 

Moods are somewhat prolonged emotional states of exhileration or 
depression. While a mood is in general but a continuous emotion, it 
differs from a true emotion both in its weaker affective quality and its 
lack of a definite object or occasion. It resembles a sentiment in that 
it is a prevailing predisposition to a class of emotions. Moods may shift 



A Syllabus of Psychology 101 

from general satisfaction to general dissatisfaction with life's experiences; 
and persons in whom such changing states are quite pronounced are said 
to be '^ moody". 

'^A Temperament is a mood that is permanent". It is a fixed 
emotional character, an '^ affective congenital constitution" which gives 
character to all of life's ideational feelings. It is a life-long predisposition 
to one kind of moods, just as moods are periodic predispositions to kinds 
of emotions. Four such temperamental characters, or '' tempers", 
have long been distinguished: ''sanguine", "choleric", "melancholic", 
and ' ' phlegmatic " . 

A Disposition, like a temperament, is an abiding characteristic, 
dependent, commonly upon inherited organic structure. It differs from 
a temperament in stressing the will more than the feelings. The com- 
monly recognized forms are "energetic", "sluggish", "excitable", etc. 

Passions are "strong, uncontrolled emotional dispositions". They 
are intense and relatively permanent emotional states, differing from 
emotions on the one side in that they are more abiding, and from temper- 
aments on the other in that they are more intense and more specifically 
directed. One may have "a passion for gambling", "a passion for 

flowers", etc. 

Questions and Exercises 

How does "a, disposition" differ from "a character"? 

Is the doctrine that temperaments are "permanent moods" warranted by the 
facts as you observe them in the lives of those about you? 

Can you discover in yourself a tendency to be "moody"; and do you sit in critical 
judgment on yourself in your efforts to control yourself? Do you have "dark days"; 
and are there days when you "feel good" all day long? 

What is a " quick temper "; and is the plea "I have a quick temper " a satisfactory 
excuse for unkind "bursts of anger" towards one's friends? 

From your own personal experiences and observation give instances of "in- 
herited dispositions ". 

Discuss the statement that "owing to past ancestral experiences, the child's 
temperament more readily responds to stunuU of one kind than another". 

Can you account for most of a teacher's difficulties in instruction and manage- 
ment on the ground of his ignorance of, or of his indifference to, his pupil's disposition? 

Is the thought of the following poem scientific truth or mere poetic vagary? — 

The World As It Is 

It's a gay old world when you're gay, 
And a glad old world when you're glad, 

But whether you play 

Or go toiling away, 
It's a sad old world when you're sad. 

It's a grand old world if you're great, 
And a mean old world if you're small; 

It's a world full of hate 

For the foolish who prate 
Of the uselessness of it all. 

It's a beautiful world to see. 
Or it's dismal in every zone; 

The thing it must be 

In your gloom or your glee 
Depends on yourself alone. 



102 A Syllabus of Psychology 

References 

Pillsbury, Essentials of Psychology, pp. 281-282. 

Titchener, Textbook of Psychology, pp. 497-498. 

Ladd, Primer of Psychology, p. 210 et seq. 

Yerkes, Introduction to Psychology, pp. 182-183. 

Angell, Psychology, p. 335. 

Putnam, Textbook of Psychology, pp. 162-163. 

Betts, Mind and its Education, pp. 185-188. 

Kulpe, Outlines of Psychology, index "Moods", ''Passions", "Dispositions", etc. 

Munsterberg, Psychology General and Applied, pp. 235-238. 

Dexter and Garlick, Psychology in the Schoolroom, pp. 242-246. 



A Syllabus of Psychology 103 



Chapter VII — Conation 



60. Willing is the active aspect of conscious experience. It is 
the third phase of a mental life event, coordinate with knowing as con- 
scious growth and feehng as conscious valuing. In modern Psychology 
the term conation has largely taken the place of the term willing, or 
''will" to designate the whole activity of a living organism conceived as 
dependent upon its spontaneity. The new term, however, includes much 
that does not come properly within the field of Psychology. The active 
striving for life by plants, as well as by all forms of animal organisms 
is ''conation " iconor^ to strive) ; but there is a distinct gain to Psychology 
in restricting the term "will" to conscious effort. Even in this limited 
use of the word two meanings may be distinguished : broadly, it includes 
all mental action as given in consciousness, whether "impulsive" or 
"deliberative"; and in the narrowest sense, it designates "the settle- 
ment by the self of a psychic issue" in true "volition". 

As an aspect of vital activity willing should be clearlj^ distinguished 
from concomitant movements of the body, either massic or molecular. 
It is strictly "mental activity"; it is not space-conditioned, and its "pro- 
cesses" do not involvjB changfe or place. The movements, or "motions", 
in the fabric of tissues or in the relative locations of the body organs are 
matters of Physiology, to be described ahd explained in terms of cause 
and effect in a world of matter; on the other hand, the mental process 
willing is given only in the field of consciousness, cannot be explained in 
terms of cause and effect, and is to be dealt with strictly by the intro- 
spective observation of Psychology. Just as extension in space is es- 
sential to matter, so conative activity is essential to mind ; and this cona- 
tive activity is given in consciousness as "willing". There is no more 
universally attested fact of human life than that mind is directly aware of 
its activity as the ultimate form of its self-realization. Critical intro- 
spective examination of experiences in the Psychological laboratory 
reveals the active aspect of all mental events. "In all sensuous per- 
ception, in all thought and feeling, there is some activity on the part of 
the individual". — Hoffding. Will is the energy of a personal self mani- 
festing itself in consciousness; and there can be no will-less, or strictly 
passive conscious existence. 

The refusal of some leading psychologists to recognize the will as 
"a third conscious element coordinate with cognition and affection" is 
due principally to a philosophical bias regarding the nature of mind. 
One who persistently refuses to entertain the conception of an integral 
personal self, spontaneously active and creative of life energy, naturally 
discovers in his introspective study of an experience only forms of object- 
seeking knowledge and subjective-valuing feelings; but he who recog- 
nizes in the coherent unity of a personal life the structural realization of a 



104 A Syllabus of Psychology 

self -active entity discerns just as clearly the conative aspect of each 
bit of conscious life. Here as elsewhere in science the student discovers 
most readily what he seeks, and the working hypothesis limits the field 
of perceptible facts. 

Questions and Exercises 

What is the distinction commonly made by accurate speakers in the expressions 
"I will go tomorrow" and "I shall go tomorrow"? 

What is the significance of Munsterberg's contention for a "purposive psychology " 
as distinct from an "explanatory psychology " ; and is such a divorcing of the two points 
of view necessary to a scientific treatment of the "Will"? 

Summarize Titchener's argument in his "Outline of Psychology" and elsewhere 
by which he seeks to estabhsh the conclusion that "There is no evidence of the third 
conscious process, however often we may analyze and reconstruct in our search for 
it". Is his strongly biased negative conclusion a result of analyzing experiences into 
"processes" rather than "aspects"? 

References 

Dewey, Psychology, p. 347 et seq. 

Betts, Mind and its Education, pp. 226-227. 

Pillsbury, Essentials of Psychology, pp. 308-309. 

Calkins, First Book in Psychology, p. 216 et seq. 

Ladd, Primer of Psychology, p. 194 et seq. 

Royce, Outlines of Psychology, Index. 

Patrick, Psychology for Teachers, p. 298 et seq. 

Davis, Elements of Psychology, pp. 309-312. 

Wenzlaff, Mental Man, p. 71 et seq. 

James, Principles of Psychology, index "Will"; Briefer Course in Psychology, 
index "Will". 

Kulpe, Outlines of Psychology, pp. 445-448. 

Dumville, Fundamentals of Psychology, pp. 302-314. 

Stout, Manual of Psychology, index "Conation" and "Will"; Groundwork of 
Psychology, pp. 279-281. 

Phillips, Elementary Psychology, index "Will". 

Munsterberg, Psychology General and Applied, index "Will". 

Halleck, Psychology and Psychic Culture, p. 299 et seq. 

Baldwin, Elements of Psychology, p. 308 et seq. 

61. The impulse is the simple will element. It is in itfe impulses 
that the self-active mind takes its initial steps toward self-completion 
by conquest of its environment. The dynamic tendency of the impulse 
originates in a sense of incompleteness; it is an appetency for completer 
life. Originating in a feeling of unstable equilibrium in the present 
state and in a contrast of the possible with the actual, the impulse seeks 
to complete existing life. Impulses are the primordial manifestations 
of conscious life; James says, ''Consciousness is in its very nature im- 
pulsive". Just as the higher forms of will in "choice" and ''purpose" 
are active expressions of desires for things believed to be attainable, so 
the impulses express sanguine expectations. Purpose is biit a higher 
rational form of impulse. 

"Impulsive action" is commonly contrasted with "deliberative 
action" afe lacking in definite cognition of its end; thus an impulse is 
defined as "a dynamic tendency of mind to act toward its environment 
without deliberation". Similarly in Baldwin's Dictionary of Philosophy 
and Psychology an impulse is defined as "a conation in so far as it oper- 



A Syllabus of Psychology 105 

ates through its intrinsic strength, independently of the general system 
of mental life". In this view impulse differs from choice only in its 
relative simplicity; and rational growth, in purposed action, consists in 
bringing constructive order into life's impulses. It is in this way that 
Sully treats impulses as '^ those inate promptings of activity in which there 
is no clear representation of a pleasure, and consequently no distinct 
desire". 

The conception of the impulse presented here postulates the essential 
activity of the mind. It accepts as a patent fact the unity of the indi- 
vidual human life. Without such an unqualified admission of the ex- 
istence of self-activity in the human organism there is no consistent 
Psychology. Spontaneity is the ultimate fact of sentient life, whether 
examined in the field of general Biology or in the more limited field of 
Psychology; and impulses are discrete forms of spontaneous action, freed 
from complex motives. 

The ^' sense of effort", which is characteristic in varying degrees of 
all vital activity, vague and evanescent in the simplest impulses, becomes 
quite pronounced in the more complex forms of purposed action. While 
it is doubtless due in part at least to the inert resistance of the body 
mechanism to concomitant changes with the mental processes, intro- 
spective observation indicates that it has not purely such a negative ori- 
gin. As an invariable accompaniment of the highest forms of active 
attention it is certainly not painful or unpleasant as the feeling of resist- 
ance to free life would be. The unsatisfactory attempts to explain the 
feeling of effort as due to obstruction of life activity probably show a 
wrong working hypothesis; life is more than the resistance of death, 
and mental determination will probably admit of an affirmative natural- 
istic explanation. The highest sense of effort is in the exhilaration of 
self-determined growth. 

Questions and Exercises 

Is sneezing ' 'impulsive action"? How does it differ from wincing or shrinking at 
an unexpected flash of lightning; and how from reaching for another biscuit which 
you see on the plate before you? 

Watch yourself critically throughout a period of three hours to discover simple 
forms of impulsive action. 

Explain Halleck's statement (''Psychology and Psychic Culture", page 307) 
that "Impulse knows no conflict of motives, no deliberation". 

What is an "impulsive person"? 

In what sense may personal growth be defined as "progressive rationalizing of 
impulses"? 

Compare impulses as elements of willing with sensations as elements of knowing, 
explaining the statement that "Impulses, like sensations, have to be acted upon by 
higher psychical processes in order to be changed into finished products". 

Contrast impulsive action as instinctive race habit with personal habit due to 
repeated experiencing. 

References 

Angell, Psychology, pp. 31D-314. 

Halleck, Psychology and Psychic Culture, Index. • 

Dewey, Psychology, pp. 347-358. 

James, Principles of Psychology, Vol. II, p. 526. 

Kulpe, Outlines of Psychology, Index. 

Patrick, Psychology for Teachers, p. 34. 



106 A Syllabus of Psychology 

Lindner, Empirical Psychology, pp. 224-226. 

Munsterberg, Psychology, General and Applied, pp. 176-179. 

Wenzlaff, Mental Man, pp. 106-117. 

Titchener, Primer of Psychology, index "Impulse". 

Morgan, Psychology for Teachers, index "Impulse". 

McLellan, AppUed Psychology, pp. 19-24. 

62. Inhibition. Inhibition is the checking or annulling of any 
form of psychosis, whether by simple negation or by preferential deter- 
mination to some other form of consciousness. It eliminates from con- 
scious life whatever fails of personal sanction ; it is in effect a suppression 
or rejection of less desirably mental content. As the negative side of 
mental growth, it is analogous to the farmer's killing weeds while culti- 
vating corn. To inhibit an idea or an emotion is to refuse to give it a 
place in experience. 

It may well be doubted that inhibition is ever simple negation, or 
annihilation of a life fact. To will that a bit of life, which is itself a fact 
of will, shall not be, is to will not to will; it is volitional sujcide. Life 
may vary its trend or form; but can life destroy itself? It is certainly a 
more reasonable view to regard inhibition as but the negative side of 
self-control. Focussing the life in one element of it, naturally minimizes 
and " displaces " other phases. Just as choosing one path in a walk through 
the woods negatively "inhibits" other possible paths, so intensifying one 
form of consciousness 'inhibits" other possible forms. Life is essen- 
tially affirmative; and inhibition is but the checking of impulsive dissi- 
pating action in the constructive process of realizing a dominant interest. 
We annihilate only in creating. 

In the nascent life of a young child it acts impulsively, responding 
to the stimulation of situations without deliberative hesitation. As his 
life develops in its experiences, the friction of reflection grows and delays 
his action, and some vital impulses are checked, or ''inhibited", in the 
interest of selective growth. It is thus by the self-restraint of inhibition 
that the integrity of personality is preserved and strengthened, that the 
true gold of healthy life replaces the tinsel of spasmodic effort. As life 
matures the greater good constantly replaces the less in the focus of 
interest, and the less is constantly "inhibited" in promoting the greater. 
This does not truly mean a conflict of opposing life facts in which one is 
annihilated by the other, but rather that the life as a continuum absorbs 
the less part in the greater whole. The whole question of the unity of 
a personal life in the solidarity of its thought systems is involved here; 
and there is no need to regard the growing inhibitions of a progressively 
organizing life as annihilations of discrete life facts. They are merely 
subordinating integrations into larger wholes. The impulses of child- 
hood are absorbed in the rational volitions of mature life. 



A Syllabus of Psychology 107 

Questions and Exercises 

Can you inhibit an impulse to yawn in imitation of the yawning of another person? 
Is this a case of simple negation? 

Does your consciousness of effort in "voluntary attention" consist in "inhibiting 
the tendency to think of other things"? 

Explain the prevalent error of seeking to promote righteousness by inhibiting 
"evil tendencies". 

Is Royce's statement, on page 71 of his Outlines of Psychology, that "What, in 
any situation, we are restrained from doing is as important to us as what we do" true? 

Show from concrete examples that "self-control" is essentially affirmative direct- 
ing of impulses. 

References 

Munsterberg, Psychology General and Applied, pp. 131-144. 

Royce, Outlines of Psychology, index "Inhibition". 

Thorndike, Elements of Psychology, index "Inhibition". 

Baldwin, Dictionary of Psychology and Philosophy, article "Inhibition". 

Oppenheim, Mental Growth and Control, pp. 267-274. 

James, Principles of Psychology, Vol. I, 404; Vol. II, p. 394 et seq. 

Dumville, Fundamentals of Psychology, index "Inhibition". 

Colvin and Bagley, Human Behavior, index "Inhibition". 

Royce, Outlines of Psychology, index "Inhibition". 

Wenzlaff, Mental Man, p. 77. 

Roark, Psychology in Education, pp. 26-27. 

Morgan, Pychologj^ for Teachers, index "Inhibition". 

Putnam Textbook of Psychology, p. 223. 

Baldwin, Elements of Psychology, pp. 339, 343. 

Halleck, Psychology and Psychic Culture, index "Inhibition". 

Buell, Essentials of Psychology, p. 226. 

63. Attention is intensified and cognitively directed consciousness. 
Ladd says, ''Attention is a process of selective focusing of psychic ener- 
gy". It is essentially an integrating movement of self-organization. 
Mental life at any moment is a continuum, in which centers of interest 
are ceaselessly shifting in a more or less complete structural organization. 
Attention selects the centers and emphasizes their importance for a 
longer or shorter interval. It brings into clearness and prominence some 
bit of mental content and thus unifies mind in selective cognition. In 
emphasizing a bit of mental life attention increases feeling as well as 
knowing; it renders cognition clearer and affection stronger. 

While strictly we attend to mental facts only, centering life in them, 
we commonly speak of ''attending to the external object" which gives 
rise to the conscious state; thus we speak of attending to the warmth of 
the stove, when strictly we attend to the conscious state originating in 
the sensing of such physical heat movement. Much confusion arises, 
even with our leading psychologists, in treating attention as a matter of 
knowing the external world objectively, rather than a focusing of mind 
in its own content. Attention is a form of will which gives relative 
clearness and intensity to mental content, whether such content is viewed 
as directly related to some object or not. In attending to itself in definite 
centers the mind knows and feels more actively. 

It is common to distinguish "involuntary attention" from "vol- 
untary attention". When the focus of one's consciousness suddenly 
shifts through some accidental disturbance of the life movement, as the 



108 A Syllabus of Psychology 

bite of a mosquito, we say ''he attends involuntarily", or ''because he 
could not help it". In this so-called involuntary attention, the mere 
force of the stimulus is thought to "compel the attention"; on the other 
hand, in voluntary attention the mind selects unforced from its content 
its center of interest. In voluntary attention there is commonly a sense 
of effort in the choice, while in involuntary attention such feeling is wholly 
lacking. The term ' ' involuntary attention ' ' means merely non-voluntary 
attention, not attention against the will. 

Designating a form of attention in which the sense of effort is lack- 
ing or not readily discernible as "involuntary attention" is unfortunate 
for the purposes of exact science. Attention is will, that is, it is in all 
its forms activity, self-determined and voluntary. All consciousness 
is active, even when most diffuse and unorganized, and it centers itself 
actively whether deliberatively or impulsively. It is a curious blunder 
to call this "involuntary attention" "spontaneous attention;" all mental 
action is spontaneous. Similarly attention has been called "voluntary 
consciousness " ; but all consciousness is voluntary. Much of this attempt 
to distinguish two kinds of attention is a mere matter of degree, and the 
terms are useless and misleading. 

Questions and Exercises 

Explain, with examples, the meaning of the statement that "attention narrows 
the field of consciousness." 

Can a person be said to "attend unconsciously" when he adjusts his body to the 
physical stimulation of the environment without being aware that he is doing so? 

Try holding your attention evenly to a barely audible sound, and note the per- 
ceptive fluctuating. See pages 158 to 171 in Seashore's "Elementary Experiments 
in Psychology " . 

If when you are conversing with some one privately in a large company you in- 
cidentally overhear a portion of a conversation between two other nearby persons, can 
you give respectful attention to your own associate and at the same time follow the 
overheard conversation? Why? 

Why does persistent attention fatigue you? Does it make you as tired to watch 
closely a long struggle of two weU-matched elevens on the football field as to spend an 
equal time in unflagging study of a history lesson? Why? 

References 

Titchener, Textbook of Psychology, pp. 265-302; Primer of Psychology, index 
"Attention". 

Ribot, Psychology of Attention ad lib. 

Yerkes, Introduction to Psychology, pp. 292-299. 

Pillsbury, Attention, ad lib; Essentials of Psychology, pp. 104-129. 

Baldwin, Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology, article "Attention". 

Angell, Psychology, pp. 64-90. 

Stout, Manual of Psychology, index "Attention". 

James, Principles of Psychology, index "Attention". 

Dunlap, System of Psychology, index "Attention". 

Calkins, First Book in Psychology, pp. 93-103. 

Major, Elements of Psychology, p. 161-184. 

Kulpe, Outlines of Psychology, index "Attention". 

64. Interest is the feeling that some fact in one's consciousness is 

important to the whole self. It fixes the attention in a definite center of 

the conscious continuum. It is thus a sense of personal concern in a 

distinct psychosis. What is called ''interest" on the subjective side 

becomes ''attention" in object-seeking cognition; interest and attention 



A Syllabus of Psychology 109 

are strictly but two aspects of the one mental fact. Stout says, '^ Atten- 
tion is interest determining cognitive processes"; and Baldwin defines 
interest as ''the impulse to attend". Considered strictly as an affective 
phase of experience, interest is satisfaction in anticipated growth. The 
etymology of the word {inter -esse) suggests that the object of interest 
is between an actual state of the self and a possible completer state; the 
interesting fact is felt to be in the pathway of natural self-realization, to 
be an increment in a larger selfhood. It must, however, be noted that 
''interest in an object" does not depend upon the nature of the object 
as such, but upon the nature and state of the mind to which the object 
is presented. As a subjective valuing of a fact of conscious experience 
interest is an uncompelled personal matter. It is never merely a passive 
state of feeling due to a situation; it is "positively active, self -expressive, 
self-assertive. " — Angell. 

Interest is both a hunger-feeling in striving for life and a satisfaction 
in its possession. As the organism "grows from less to more", it claims 
its world in anticipation, and there is a feeling of "pleasure that is almost 
pain", a satisfaction born of dissatisfaction. Interest is a true valuing 
of life in the details of its growth ; and without such appreciative valuing 
the acquisitive activity of growing is impossible. We live because life 
interests us. 

The difficulty apparent in this discussion of interest is the common 
one of all Psychology, namely, the attempt to separate the feeling of 
interest from the cognition and conation of attention. The term always 
designates more than mere subjective appreciation; it connotes cognitive 
and conative striving. 

Questions and Exercises 

Why do we so readily forget what does not interest us? 

Criticise Calkins's statement that interest is "a synonym for involuntary atten- 
tion". 

What is a "permanent interest"; and what is the meaning of the statement that 
"it is the function of a course in college to estabhsh permanent interests"? 

Why do the "interests" of manhood differ from those of childhood? 

Why cannot a person be interested in that of which he is wholly ignorant. 

References 

Stout, Analytic Psychology, Vol. II, p. 224 et seq; Groundwork of Psychology, 
index "Interest". 

James, Principles of Psychology, Vol. I, pp. 402-403. 

Betts, Mind and its Education, pp. 195-211. 

Dewey, Interest as Related to Will, Herbart Year Book, 1895. Second Supple- 
ment. 

Dumville, Fundamentals of Psychology, index "Interest". 

Angell, Psychology, pp. 363-368. 

McLellan, Applied Psychology, pp. 16-19. 

Phillips, Elementary Psychology, index "Interest". 

Colvin, Learning process, index "Interest". 

Dexter and Garlick, Psychology in the Schoolroom, pp. 31-33. 

Read, Introductory Psychology, index "Interest". 

Calkins, First Book in Psychology, p. 103. 

Kirkpatrick, Individual in the Making, pp. 11-57. 



110 A Syllabus of Psychology 

65. Choice is preferential action in view of motives. It is definite 
decision of mental issues in a final resolution of what is held in suspense 
in deliberation. As executive fiat it commits the self in a preference of 
a selected object. Choice is self-disposition in relation to cognized ob- 
jects; it is active self-determination, essentially a fact of will to which the 
preceding deliberation involving cognition and affection is but a prelude. 

Motives are the conscious facts considered in the deliberations lead- 
ing to choice. In choice one motive finally becomes the germinant center 
of the will act, and other motives that have been similarly important in 
various tentative partial choices in the course of the preceding delibera- 
tions drop from consciousness. The etymology of the word motive 
{moveo^ to move) may be misleading; thus, it is inaccurately stated that 
^'motives move the will". A motive is not to be regarded as a determin- 
ing force objectively distinct from one's self; it is one's self in ideas and 
feelings. Choice is not '^yielding to motives" ; . while it involves motives, 
it is superior to them in the same way that the growing plant is superior 
to the food elements in the soil and air in which it lives. At most, motives 
furnish the occasion, not the cause, of the choice. 

Deliberation is a comparative valuing of possible centers of exper- 
ience. Stout regards it as ''a state of unstable equilibrium" in which 
"the mind oscillates between alternatives". Deliberation proceeds by 
many partial choices of motives, until decision cuts short the process in 
a dominant final choice. '^ Deliberation is a series of judgments or active 
imagings that precede selective and volitional action" (Titchener). In 
the final choice one judgment is rendered victorious by a decisive execu- 
tive fiat. In the deliberative process one conative tendency is relatively 
superior, then another, and so on, until one greater movement sweeps all 
to a final conclusion. In Baldwin's Dictionary of Philosophy it is said 
that ''Deliberation is the comparison of alternative courses which pre- 
cede and issue in choice". The determining consideration in this com- 
parison is the prospective values of such courses to the self as a whole. 
In deliberation there is cognition of possible actions and a feeling of open 
alternatives which choice resolves into the acceptance of one action with 
a feeling of satisfaction in a temorarily completed self. It is on account 
of the cognition of the alternative courses of action in deliberation that 
is is called 'Hhe intellectual factor of will". 

Decision is the termination of deliberative choice. In it the mind 
puts the stamp of selective approval upon a particular conscious fact. 
It denotes the completion of a process of mental construction, which we 
commonly describe by the declaration ''my mind is made up". In de- 
cision the mind passes "from a state of suspense to a state of resolution". 
It terminates "a struggle of motives" by an executive fiat. It is the 



A Syllabus of Psychology 111 

overt act of choice. Betts says, "Decision consists in mentally agreeing 
to attend to the images suggesting the accepted line of action and shutting 
from mind those opposed to it". It is the mind as a whole that '^de- 
cides" it is not a mastery by an over-strong contending factor in a dis- 
organized arena. Decision is the typical will act. 

To form any consistent conception of the nature of choice one must 
hypostatize the existence of a unified mental entity realizing itself in 
various psychoses, yet superior to them all. Whatever may be thought 
to be the requirements of modern Psychology as a positive science of 
mental phenomena, it gains nothing and loses much by the attempt to 
dissolve integral personality into a mere " stream of processes." Neither 
philosophical abstractions nor introspective analysis of concrete mental 
events justifies such a view. On the other hand, the student will find 
a most productive working hypothesis in the idea of a self-active personal 
will. 

A good example of choice for repeated introspective study is found 
in the buying of fruit at a fruit stand on the sidewalk of a city. Note 
critically the mental facts in considering the varieties of the fruit as it 
is spread out in tempting array, in recognizing different claims of desir- 
ableness, in limiting the purchase to one kind of fruit, in making the 
selection. 

Questions and Exercises 

Put yourself under well defined experimental conditions — use an assistant, if 
necessary — -, and observe introspectively a process of choice in all its movemen+s to 
the conclusion. Write out a genetic account of the process as soon after its conclusion 
as possible, being as loyal to the simple description of the facts as you can. 

Explain, with examples, Miss Calkins' s statement, page 228 of her First Book in 
Psychology, of the difference between " choice with effort " and "choice without effort ", 
"in the choice without effort, I fully abandon one alternative, whereas in the choice 
with effort, I choose one alternative in full view of the other". — See also James's state- 
ment. 

Review your experiences in a preceding hour, determining as clearly as you can 
various choices that you have made in the period; search critically in your reminiscent 
consciousness for the motives operative in the choices, and endeavor to recall feelings 
of effort in the decisions. 

Is Ladd warranted in the statement that "The highest expression of will is reached 
when a choice is made"? Primer of Psychology, page 202. 

Is "holding in suspense" as the mere retardation of the executive fiat, itself a will 
action? Do you thus "will not to will"? 

What is "doubt " ; and is it the " cause " of the delayed fiat? Is doubting a higher 
form of intellectual life than instinctive acceptance of experience without questioning 
its desirability? 

References 

James, Principles of Psychology. Vol. II, pp. 528-535. 

Dewey, Psychology, pp. 365-368. 

Stout, Manual of Psychology, pp. 585-595. 

Baker, Elementary Psychology, pp. 210-212. 

Ladd, Primer of Psychology, pp. 199-203. 

Pillsbury, Essentials of Psychology, pp. 304-307. 

Calkins, First Book in Psychology, pp. 227-230. 

Dumville, Fundamentals of Psychology, p. 304. 

Wundt, Outlines of Psychology, index "Choice". 

Halleck, Psychology and Psychic Culture, pp. 323-326. 

McLellan, Applied Psychology, pp. 138-140. 

Stout, Manual of Psychology, p. 581 et seq.; Groundwork of Psychology, pp. 229- 
236. 



112 A Syllabus of Psychology 

Dexter and Garlick, Psychology in the Schoolroom, p. 288. 
Baldwin, Elements of Psychology, pp. 252-256. 
Davis, Elements of Psychology, index "Choice". 
Thorndike, Elements of Psychology, p. 87. 
Titchener, Primer of Psychology, pp. 251-253. 
Hoffding, Outlines of Psychology, p. 328. 

Baldwin, Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology, articles on terms involved in 
discussion of Choice. 

66. Execution is the carrying into effect in organic bodily activity 
of the decision of the will. This term implies a misunderstanding of the 
nature of will activity. Willing is not merely initiative action originat- 
ing body movements which subsequently continue as effects; it is sus- 
tained activity characterizing the whole movement. A will decision is 
continuous throughout the whole body execution; as when I will to raise 
m}^ hand from the table, I not only will the beginning of the movement, 
but I will it all the way up. Willing is not prior deciding what to do; 
it is doing viewed as mental activity. What one wills he is doing, and his 
doing ceases with his willing. Willing is self-determined living and is 
continuous throughout the whole life movement. Conscious life is a 
succession of will acts, a progressive manifestation of the personal self. 

The term "resolution" is sometimes used in Psychology to denote 
decision to do what is not immediately done; as, when one resolves to 
"write that letter after dinner". Bain says it "indicates the situation 
of having ceased to deliberate without having begun to act". The error 
here, for a little critical study of the facts will show that it is an error, 
is the separating of a discrete fiat deciding an issue from the progressive 
will movement of the growing life of which the particular decisive action 
is but a momentary phase. Willing is progressively accomplishing re- 
sults, it is the effective phase of life, as distinguished from feeling as the 
affective phase. The "purpose" of will is achieved in the purposing. 
To resolve to do is to do, so far as the life has then progressed; subsequent 
doing is subsequent willing. Anticipated action is already a fact so far 
as life has gone; and the material embodiment is progressive purposing 
seen from the side of the body mechanism. It is impossible to separate 
the psychosis of will from the neurosis of body movement. 

Questions and Exercises 

Test introspectively in repeated experiments the truth of the statement beginning 
in the fifth line of this section. 

What is the psychological meaning of the proverb, "Well begun is half done", 
cognitively, affectively, and volitionally? 

Does not the heading of Chapter XIII of Pillsbury's Essentials of Psychology, 
''Action and Will", imply a serious error as to the nature of "will". 

Explain the statement that "will is conscious doing"; and show that will exists 
in personal life only as consciousness of action in progress. Has the term "latent" 
any true scientific meaning as designating physical forces; and, similarly, has the term 
"anticipatory will" any clear technical meaning as designating a conative phase of 
mental life? 

"All the world is a becoming"; "Life is continuous self-creating"; "only action 



A Syllabus of Psychology 113 

is real, and science deals everywhere with a dynamic world" — do these fundamental 
philosophical conceptions imply an exclusively dynamic, or acting, view of the human 
will? 

References 

Ladd, Primer of Psychology, p. 204, 

Baldwin, Elements of Psychology, p. 347. 

Dexter and Garlick, Psychology in the Schoolroom, pp. 288-289. 

Dewey, Psychology, p. 414. 

Baldwin, Dictionary of Philosophy and' Psychology, articles "Purpose", etc. 

Stout, Analytic Psychology, Vol. I, pp. 143-179. 

67. The question of "the freedom of tlie will" has been the center 
of endless philosophical and theological controversy. As students of 
Psychology we are concerned here with the facts as revealed in introspec- 
tive observation. We leave to the theologians . the reconciling of these 
facts with a priori speculations as to the nature of man in his relation to 
his Creator. Likewise we refuse to be biased by philosophical theories 
of causation that would include mental entities in a closed circuit of 
transformable unincreasable forces. In all the centuries of discussion 
two theories, or rather groups of theories of varying forms, have been 
distinguished ; ' ' necessity ' ' and ' ' free will ' ' . Necessity, or ' ^ determinism ' ' , 
regards the will in terms of cause and effect, in a mechanical universe 
whose whole explanation is summed up in the "conservation of energy". 
Free-will, or "libertarianism", regards willing as the spontaneous, un- 
caused activity of a free autonomous personality. While the idea of 
freedom is involved in any rational conception of the will, it does not 
mean "transcendental freedom" of arbitrary action. By "freedom of 
the will" we understand natural mental activity spontaneously origi- 
nated ; and the evidence of the existence of such freedom is overwhelm- 
ingly conclusive in any unbiased observation of the facts of rational 
human life. Strict "determinism" and strict " trancendental freedom" 
are alike psychological absurdities. 

To explain the expression "I will" demands a recognition of the 
unified entity designated by the word "I" and an equal recognition of 
the uncaused activity expressed by the word "will". These are patent 
facts both in the naive consciousness of the uncritical and in the strictest 
scientific examination of the forms and elements of human life. There 
is no more indisputable fact of mind than willing, and willing has no 
meaning in a mechanical universe. The will is both the beginning and 
the ending of all psychoses; to will is to live. 

Questions and Exercises 

Is not your own conviction of your freedom in the common decisions of your life 
events, the conviction that in every act you perform you might have done something 
else if you had chosen to do so, conclusive proof for you of "freedom of the will"? 

Does the "common sense" of the race in holding persons responsible for their 
acts establish the doctrine of the "freedom of the will"? 

Place the tip of your finger on a spot on the table before you; are you free to lift 
it? Were you similarly free in choosing to go to college? 



114 A Syllabus of Psychology 

Watch your conduct throughout a day, to see whether you are led to the con- 
clusion that "one always does the thing he wants to do". 

What is the meaning of Baldwin's statement that "choice is never motiveless"; 
and does the fact that "one decides in the line of the strongest motive " make his choice 
"caused" and his will "unfree"? 

Show that without freedom personality is a myth, that life enclosed in a circle of 
causation is shorn of all moral responsibility. 

References 

Ladd, Primer of Psychology, p. 205; Psychology, Descriptive and Explanatory, 
pp. 632-638. 

Putnam, Textbook of Psychology, pp. 224-226. 

Baker, Elementary Psychology, p. 218. 

Stout, Manual of Psychology, p. 589 et seq. 

James, Principles of Psychology, Vol. II, p. 569 et seq. 

Munsterberg, Psychology, General and Applied, pp. 323-326. 

Thilly, Introduction to Ethics, pp. 316-339. 

Fite, Introductory Study of Ethics, pp. 233-234. 

Davis, Elements of Psychology, p. 318 et seq. 

Spiller, Mind of Man, pp. 285, 381. 

68. A Strong will. The terms '^ strong" and ''weak" as applied 
to human wills commonly imply a ''faculty" view of the mind, a view 
in which the "memory", or the "will", or the "judgment" may vary 
independently in efficiency of functioning as regards other "faculties". 
In an analygous functional view, the mind is conceived as "strong" or 
"weak" in one specific mode of action without simultaneous strength or 
weakness in other "functions". When the will is regarded as it is in 
this Syllabus as the inseparable active aspect of the mind, its strength 
or weakness is the strength or weakness of the unified life of the organism. 
A "strong will" is a strong man, a man forceful and skilful in his life 
activities. Wills vary in form as organic personal lives vary; and vigor- 
ous life is strong will. Schiller well said that "Man is made great or little 
by his will". 

Strength of will has two distinct elements : readiness in decision and 
forcefulness in execution. "To decide what to do promptly and to do it 
persistently is success ". Such self -directed living is natural and healthy. 
It is evident that mere brutal persistence, awkwardly directed, is not 
"strong life " ; quickness and skill are equally essential. James Freeman 
Clarke defines strength of will as" that quality of the mind which is prompt 
to decide, and, having decided, cannot be moved from its purpose, but 
holds on through evil report and good report; overcomes obstacles; 
shrinks from no difiiculty; relies on its own judgment; does not yield to 
fashion — and so presses to its mark always". A healthy life is strong in 
action (will), growing in knowledge (intellect), and sensitive in appre- 
ciation (feeling) . 

Weakness of will is essentially flabbiness of personal character. It 
is general sluggishness of life, lack of vitality equally in cognition, affection 
and conation. A man of weak will is a man of low intellectual and moral 



A Syllabus of Psychology 115 

vitality. Such weakness manifests itself in '' indolence", ''unreliable- 
ness ' V ' impulsiveness " , " stubbornness " , et c . A weak will may be made 
strong "through doing with concentration things that can be done effec- 
tively, for ends that are increasing.y remote and that require the co- 
ordination of many activities before they can be secured". In addition 
to this habit of persistent doing, one should form the complementary 
habjt of deciding promptly in all minor affairs of life, for "in many cir- 
cumstances in life, a poorer choice promptly made is better than a wiser 
one arrived at tardily". 

Questions and Exercises 

Why does demanding ''implicit obedience" of a child tend to weaken his will; 
and why should obedience to authority always be "consent of the will to assent of the 
understanding ' ' ? 

Examine your own life to discover whether you are troubled with indecision in 
comparatively unimportant matters, or whether you are overimpulsive in your choices. 
Are you making any persistent effort to cultivate volitional integrity? 

Is it true that "the firmest basis of a strong will is a sense of duty"? 

What is a " weakling ' ' ? Explain psychologically Amiel' s statement that, ' ' Feeble- 
ness of will brings about weakness of head and of heart. 

What is the significance of the assertion "I will", both as anticipating action and 
as action in progress? Does the person who says "I will try" ever really mean it? 

References 

Dexter and GarHck, Psychology in the Schoolroom, p. 299. 

Clarke, Self-culture, pp. 363-368. ' 

Betts, Mind and its Education, pp. 235-242. 

Brooks, Mental Science and Culture, pp. 497-500, 

Bagley, School Discipline, pp. 36-40. 



116 



A Syllabus of Psychology 



INDEX 



Abnormal psychology 27 

Abstraction 70 

Active character of experience 30 

Adolescent psychology 26 

Aesthetics 25 

Aesthetic sentiments 99 

Affection 85 

Agreeableness 85 

Altruistic emotions 94 

Anabolic body processes 85 

Analysis in psychology 14 

Animal psychology 19 

Antagonism of feeling and knowing ... .96 

Apperception 67 

Apperception and perception 68 

Apperceptive masses 68 

Appetites 88 

Aristotle's dichotomy 37 

Art products in psychology 19 

Aspecting and partitioning 90 

Association, laws of 62 

Attention 107 

Attention and interest 109 

Attention, involuntary 107 

Attention, object of 107 

Auditory sensation 45 

Auxiliary methods in psychology 17 

Bacon and Aristotle 78 

Biology 25 

Body and mind 33 

Body, function of 33 

Body-mind organism 33 

Catabolic body processes 85 

Causation, not in psychic facts 110 

Cause and effect, law of 63 

Centrally-aroused sensations 50 

Child Study 18 

Choice 110 

Choice and motives 110 

Choice, executive fiat in 110 

Cognition, aspects of 41 

Cognition, essentially conscious 39 

Cognition, nature of 38 

Cognitive growth 38 

Collective psychology 27 

Comparative psychology 27 



Comparison 70 

Conation 103 

Concept 69 

Conception 69 

Conscience 100 

Consciousness 16 

Contiguity, law of 63 

Cosmic emotions 94 

Creative imagination 73 

Dating a past event 66 

Decision 110 

Deductive reasoning 79 

Deductive syllogism 79 

Deliberation 110 

Deliberative action 104 

Denomination of a concept 70 

Determinism 113 

Direct observation of mental facts 16 

Disagreeableness 85 

Dispositions 101 

Double-aspect theory 35 

Duahstic view 56 

Educational psychology 27 

Effort, sense of 105 

Egoistic emotions 94 

Elaborative cognition 67 

Emotions 92 

Emotions and simple feelings 93 

Emotions and sentiments 91 

Emotions, classification of 94 

Emotions may be cultivated 93 

Epistemology 25 

Error in thinking 81 

Ethical sentiments 100 

Ethics 25 

Events in conscious life 15 

Execution 112 

Executive fiat in choice 110 

Experience 30 

Experience cumulative 30 

Experience essentially active 30 

Experimental psychology 20 

"Experimenter" and "assistant" 21 

Experiments in psychology, scope of . . . .21 

Extension of a concept 71 

Eye-mindedness of the human race 46 



A Syllabus of Psychology 



117 



Fallacies 81 

Fancy 74 

Feeling 85 

''Feeling" as active touching 85 

Feelings classified 87 

Field of psychology 24 

Forgetting 63 

"Freedom of the will" 113 

Functional psychology 27 

"Future" 66 

General concept 69 

Generalization 70 

General psychology 26 

Genetic psychology 27 

Growth of mind 39 

" Has-been" character of memory 66 

History 25 

Human life studied in psychology 24 

Idealizing imagination 73 

Ideational feelings 87 

Ideational feelings, kinds of 91 

Illusory perceptions 57 

Image 60 

Imagination 72 

Imagination and conception 73 

Imagination and memory 72 

Imagination, forms of 73 

Impulse 104 

Impulse and choice 105 

Impulsive action 104 

Indirect observation of mental facts 17 

Individual concept 69 

"Individual facts" of psychology 12 

Individual psychology 27 

Inductive reasoning 79 

"Inductive syllogism" 80 

Infant psychology 26 

Inferential study of mind 17 

Inhibition 108 

Inhibition a form of integration 108 

Inhibition not merely negative, v 106 

Insane mind, how studied 19 

Intellectual sentiments. 99 

Intensifying imagination 73 

Intension of a concept 71 

Interaction of mind and body 34 

Interest 109 

Interest a feeling of satisfaction 109 



Interest and attention 109 

Interest essentially active 109 

Interest essential to life 109 

Introspection 15 

Introspection, difficulty of 16 

Intuition 44 

Involuntary attention 107 

"I will" 113 

James-Lange theory 88 

Judgment 75 

Judgment as concept defining 75 

Knowing an "external object" 39 

Knowing begins in mind activity 41 

Knowing essentially active 41 

Knowing, feeling and willing aspects 36 

Knowing process 39 

Knowing process not a time sequence. ...41 

Knowledge 82 

Knowledge, identity with self 39 

"Knowledge that" and "knowledge 

what" 83 

Knowledge not "contained in" the 

mind 82 

Laboratory study in psychology 22 

Language in thinking 70 

"Laws of association" 62 

Libertarian theory of will 113 

Life a stream of experiences 12 

Life not mere resistance of death 105 

Localizing in memory 65 

Localizing sensations 49 

"Local signs " 49 

Logic 25 

Lower and higher feelings 87 

Material of psychology 12 

Mathematical psychology impossible.... 49 

Measurement of mental facts 48 

Memory as an experience 59 

Memory as mental connective tissue 60 

Memory, elements of 61 

Memory image 60 

Metabolic body processes 85 

Method in Science 11 

Method of psychology 14 

Middle term 79 

Mind a continuum 12 

Mind and body 33 



118 



A Syllabus of Psychology 



Mind, views of 12 

Monistic theory of life 56 

Moods 100 

Moody 101 

Motives 110 

Motives not causes 110 

Necessitarian theory of will 113 

Nervous mechanism and mind 45 

"New psychology" and "old psy- 
chology" 28 

Object of knowledge 42 

Observation of conscious facts 15 

Observation alters facts observed 16 

Observation under controlled condi- 
tions 20 

Organic sensations 45 

"Outer world" of perception 55 

"Over-individual facts of physics 12 

Pain 87 

Parallelism of mind and body 35 

Passions 101 

Passive imagination 74 

"Past" 66 

Pedagogy 26 

Perception a constructive process 86 

Perception active 56 

Perception and sensation 54 

Perception, illusory 57 

Perception, nature of 53 

Personal life the subject of psychology . . 9 

Phases of conscious experience 38 

Phonism 50 

Photism 50 

Physical facts over-individual 12 

Physics 25 

Physiological psychology 29 

Physiology 25 

Pleasantness 85 

Predication in judgment 76 

"Present" 66 

Presentative cognition 42 

Procession of experiences in a life 32 

Psychiatry 27 

Psychic analysis not partitioning 42 

Psychical facts individual 12 

Psychical facts not measurable 48 

Psy etiological analysis 14 

Psychological laboratory 22 



Psychology a new science 14 

Psychology a science 11 

Psychology defined 9 

Psychology, kinds of 26 

Psychology, methods of 14 

Psychology, subject matter of 12 

Psychopathology 27 

Psychophysical parallelism 35 

Psycho-physics 48 

Psychotherapy ' 27 

Purpose 104 

Qualitative character of psychic facts.... 48 
Quantity of sensations 47 

Race psychology 27 

Rational psychology 28 

Reasoning as purposive thinking 77 

Reasoning, forms of 78 

Reasoning, nature of 77 

Recalling in memory 63 

Recognizing in memory 64 

Recollection 63 

Redintigration, law of 63 

Representative cognition 58 

Resolution 112 

Retaining in memory 61 

Retrospective introspection 15 

Reviving a past experience 62 

Rhythm in measuring time 66 

Science, method in .11 

Science, psychology a 11 

Sciences do not overlap 24 

Science transforms reality 16 

"Seeing ghosts" 57 

Selfhood 64 

Senile psychology 27 

Sensation continuum 40 

Sensation essentially active 43 

Sensation, nature of 43 

Sensation produced at will 52 

Sensation, quantity of 47 

Sensation, threshold of 46 

Sensation, Titchener's definition of 44 

Sensations as psychic elements 44 

Sensations, Hyslop's classification of — 56 

Sensations, kinds of 54 

Sensations subjective 54 

Sense of effort 105 

Sense organs 45 



A Syllabus of Psychology 



119 



Sensuous feelings 87 

Sentiments 97 

Sentiments essentially affective 100 

Sentiments, kinds of 99 

Similarity, law of 63 

Social psychology 27 

Soul as subject of psychology 9 

Special psychology 26 

Spontaneity 105 

Stimulus to sensation..... 47 

Stream of consciousness 32 

Structural psychology 27 

Subject-object problem. . . . ?" 15 

''Strong will" 114 

Syllogism 79 

Synaesthesia 50 

Temperaments 101 

Term distinguished from concept 70 

Terms of a syllogism 79 

"Things" 82 

Things and ideas 55 

Thinking 81 



Time not a thing 65 

Time, "a general view of events" 65 

Time as "past", "present", "future" .65 
" Trancendental freedom" of the will ...93 

Unpleasantness 85 

Universals 69 

Visual sensations 45 

Vital union of mind and body 33 

Voluntary Attention 107 

Weakness of will 114 

" Weber-Fechner Law" 48 

Will 103 

Will distinguished from conation 103 

Will, freedom of 113 

Willing 103 

Willing a continuous process 112 

Willing and execution 112 

Will, strong or weak 103 

Will to live ..113 



CONGRESS 








